Forge your path
by Akashru
Summary: This is a story where Naruto is smart but ignorant. He sees the consequences of him goofing off and decides to change. Watch him use kagebunshin along with the basics to grow and become his own person
1. Chapter 1: A beginning

**Forge your path**

 **AN: I do not own Naruto. This is true for all the fanfiction written here by me. Kindly apply.**

Chapter 1: A beginning

Naruto was running. He remembered how Iruka sensei had saved him and how he was called the kyuubi. He finally found out the reason for all those glares, why he was not usually allowed into shops run by civilians, why he had trouble getting decent behaviour, why he healed so fast, why he had slightly better senses than normal. All this because he was the kyuubi container. He realised that he was not the kyuubi as Mizuki had said. He was not _that_ dumb but hey, to a 12 y.o kid, dropping the fact that the most dangerous demon heard of was sealed in his gut and that is why he was abused and not expecting him to panic is just plain stupid.

But he also realised that he needed to run away with the scroll. Away from Mizuki and back to the hokage. He also knew that Iruka sensei was hurt and that if he did that then there was very little chance that Iruka would survive. He also did not know who would believe him when he returned with the scroll. So he decided to hide. All the noise they were making was bound to attract attention. And he was always good at hiding. All of this was running through his head during his mad dash through the forest. A small root that he did not notice tripped him and he rolled with the scroll on his back. It hurt him. But the continued and while running noticed a small hollow in a tree nearby. He immediately went towards the hollow which was slightly under ground level thus not very easy to spot. It was more like a gap in the roots.

By the time he stilled, he heard the sound of a scuffle. He stilled his breathing and all sorts of noise that he can make as he had learnt to do when pranking people. He heard Mizuki say "How did you know that I am not Iruka?"

Then he heard a poof and Iruka's voice saying "Because I am Iruka."

He heard Mizuki sigh. Mizuki said "Iruka, you are my friend. Why are you protecting the demon? He is the one who killed your parents and so many others. He is why you are an orphan. Even now I am sure he is going to run away with the scroll leaving you to die. He will use it for his benefits and learn all sorts of powerful jutsu from it. Why would you protect him?"

He held his breath. This was the defining moment. Iruka sensei had been nice to him off late but since Naruto was hidden well, Iruka would not know here was here. This was the time when Naruto would truly know what Iruka thought about him since there was no reason for Iruka to lie.

He waited, holding his breath and heard Iruka say "Mizuki, you are right. The demon would do that. He is the reason I was orphaned and would probably run away with the scroll leaving me here to die." Naruto felt like his heart was going to break but he held on and listened when Iruka continued "Naruto however is not like that. If it were the kyuubi I was dealing with, I would have joined you in putting him down. But what you fail to see and acknowledge is that Naruto is a loyal ninja to the leaf, he is a child, an exceptional one and he would never do what you said. He is behaving like a typical orphan and only needs some attention before he becomes one of the best people you would have ever seen. That is not the kyuubi. He is his own person and I will defend him with my life. It is true that he would run straight to the hokage to try and get help for me. But that is his job. That is what he should do. You however won't understand that will you?"

Naruto felt warm. He felt like crying out of happiness. He knew Iruka sensei was nice to him but he did not think that Iruka sensei liked him so much and cared for him so much. He was almost lost in happy thoughts when he heard a snarl which brought him back to earth.

Mizuki snarled and said "I was gonna leave you alive Iruka due to our friendship but I can't leave you like this. You also have been poisoned by the demon. DIE!" Saying this Mizuki rushed to Iruka with a kunai in hand. Naruto meanwhile was in a tough decision. He knew he was not good enough to defeat Mizuki. For God's sake, Mizuki was a chunin while he was still an academy student. By all rights, he should be running to the hokage. But he had seen that Iruka was hurt and would not win against Mizuki. He could not leave Iruka, one of the only people who cared for him to die. His decision was made. With determination on his face, he rushed out and just hit Mizuki full force with his body before he reached Iruka.

Iruka was waiting with a kunai ready to somehow stall when suddenly Mizuki was blown away by an orange blur. Mizuki hit a tree trunk with his back. Naruto stood in front of Iruka with an aura around him. His eyes cold blue, like deep oceans, his face determined. He stood as if immovable and growled "If you even think of killing Iruka sensei, I will kill you."

Mizuki snarled. There was something broken in his body and he could not bend appropriately. But he still thought he could take down an academy student and a weak chunin. He armed himself and stood up saying "How are you going to do that? There is only one of you and you are only an academy student. Let's see you try." He was about to start rushing when he heard Naruto say "If the problem is that only one of us can't beat you, then not to worry, get ready to get thrashed." Saying this Naruto put his hands in a weird cross shaped handseal and started channelling his chakra. The feeling of the chakra brought both Iruka and Mizuki to a halt. Neither had felt chakra in such quantities. There was almost a blue shine around Naruto.

He shouted "Kagebunshin" and released his chakra. There was a huge puff. Then suddenly the whole place was filled with orange. Everywhere one could see, there was only Naruto in his orange jumpsuit. They started shouting "We will pummel you thousand fold." Suddenly on command, half of them henged into Iruka and carrying the kagebunshin version of the scroll started randomly attacking Mizuki and running away. Two of them had kawarimied with the original Iruka and Naruto.

Mizuki snarled and arming himself with two back to back kunai he started a melee battle. He started popping clothes left and right. He was too fast for them even if they were dog piling him. He kept moving and started attempting to thin the numbers. He was still getting hurt though. Random shots that somehow with luck managed to hit him. He was still slowly thinning the clone crowd. Naruto kept getting updates and wondered how. When he started realising that Mizuki was slowly winning, he asked Iruka "Iruka sensei, Mizuki sensei is too fast for me. My clones are hurting him but he is slowly killing more and more clones. He is using a clever combination of shunshin and kawarimi. He is coming to a place, killing a few and moving away before the rest could react to him. Could you signal the other ninjas in some way?"

Iruka said "I did not carry any of the flares with me Naruto. In my hurry to come searching for you, I did not get all my equipment."

Naruto asked "Do you know any fire jutsu that we can shoot into the sky?"

At seeing that Iruka nodded surprised as to why he didn't think of it. He immediately started handseals and sent out the great fireball jutsu. It blasted right above the treetops over his location. Seeing Iruka finish the jutsu, Naruto clones kawarimied the two of them again and it was just in time as Mizuki had just arrived there. Mizuki said "So you are the real Iruka eh. Time to kill the two of you and run away".

Saying this he approached with more care since Iruka was fast enough to see him normally. This was his undoing since all the nearby Narutos threw kunai in his direction. He heard whistling and substituted again but by this time his chakra was running low. Constantly enforcing his body with chakra, shunshin, kawarimis tired him out. He also was afraid that the other ninja would come to him soon. He then had a brainwave. But before he could implement it more Naruto fought him. They were slowly improving. The understood his tactics and their reaction times got better little by little. This was causing him more injuries since he already had a lot of small shallow cuts and a kunai sticking out of his thigh. He slit their throat and shunshined away again. He henged into an ANBU and suddenly appeared in front of the clones saying "what is going on?" The clones stopped and told him "Mizuki sensei tricked me into stealing the scroll and learning a jutsu. I learnt the jutsu and was waiting for him to pass me. Iruka sensei found me and we were returning with the scroll to clear up the situation when Mizuki attacked me and Iruka sensei. Iruka sensei is hurt enough to not be able to fight and we are trying to stall Mizuki sensei waiting for you to arrive. Where is your team?"

Mizuki stood paying attention to the clone talking thinking that he had fooled them. This was why he did not realise that two other clones were slowly sneaking up on him. He was saying "Ok, my team will find Mizuki to take care of him. Tell me where Iruka and Naruto are so that I can escort them."

When he finished he suddenly heard whistling but could not do anything to dodge in time and found two kunai both insert into his knee caps from behind shattering them. He also found two kunai inserted into his shoulder caps as well. The pain became unbearable and he dropped to the floor. He fought through the pain and looked up to see a Naruto clone looking at him with a gleam in his eyes saying "Nice try Mizuki sensei. Unfortunately for you, henge does not in any way hide smell and I could smell that it was you." Saying this, he suddenly felt a sharp hit on the back of his head and then knew no more.

The Naruto clone talking to him felt for a pulse and found one. Then he opened his eyes to see if he was knocked out. On finding out he was he asked one of the clones to slowly dispel to let Naruto know about what happened. Each of the Naruto clones got experience from the clones fighting and figured that the original also got it. Thus this could be used to send a message. One of the clones dispelled and then another dispelled to let him know they were coming. He then organised a guard of sorts around Mizuki while starting to strip him of weapons.

Naruto meanwhile suddenly stopped while running saying "Iruka sensei, they subdued Mizuki. You have given a signal to show where we are. The Hokage tower and the hospital are still too away. Let's go back to the clearing and rest while waiting for the others to come. My clones will patrol and lead them there."

Iruka looked at Naruto and said "Ok. Let's go." Saying this, he took the shoulder offered by Naruto and his clone. He watched another clone dispel and they slowly got back to the clearing. The closer he got to the clearing, the more impressed he seemed to be getting. There were Naruto clones patrolling in groups of three in the arrowhead formation. This was in three layers. There was also another layer that was hidden which was there in case someone fought their way through. This layer of clones could ambush them. On reaching the clearing, he was even more surprised. Mizuki was stripped. He did not mean this lightly. Mizuki was literally only in his underwear. All his clothes and weapons were on one side far away from where Mizuki laid with a three-man clone team guarding it. There were another two three-man teams guarding Mizuki with what he assumed to be the leader clone walking to Naruto. The leader clone hugged Iruka and said "Thank you, sensei."

Naruto looked on and said "Hey! I should do that. You are a clone."

The leader clone gave the original a stinky eye. Then became serious and said "Boss, Mizuki-sensei is injured. We most probably shattered his knee-caps and shoulder joints. Then knocked him out. I don't think he will bleed out. You.." Suddenly both the clone and the original supporting Iruka cocked their heads. Then both sighed.

Iruka looked lost. He said "What just happened? How could you take down a chunin? And what now?"

Naruto looked at Iruka, and then realised that the clone information does not pass to him. He said "I will tell you this during the report Iruka sensei. Currently there is an ANBU team that is being escorted by my clones on its way."

He just barely finished saying this when the team arrived and landed on the floor a little distance from Naruto and his set of clones. The clones all surrounding Naruto and Iruka armed themselves while the original and Iruka who looked injured slowly separated from the rest.

Seeing them getting ready to protect, the two ANBU slowly raised their hands saying "We are friends. Chunin Iruka, report what happened? Why are you in consort with the traitor Uzumaki?"

Seeing Naruto bristle at being called a traitor Iruka quickly said "He is not a traitor. In short, he was tricked by Mizuki into stealing the scroll over a misunderstanding. I found him and we were returning to the hokage towers to return the scroll and clear up this misunderstanding when Mizuki attacked us to take the scroll. A short fight ensued and Mizuki is captured. He might bleed out so needs to be given medical attention so that he can be interrogated."

The ANBU stepped forward relaxing and said "Thank you. Now we would like the scroll so that it can be taken."

Naruto immediately shouted "Nothing doing." Immediately the ANBU tensed and seeing that the clones also tensed. But before a fight could break out Naruto continued "Mizuki already tried to impersonate ANBU to get the scroll. You can escort us to the hokage towers but the only person that I am handing this scroll over to is Hokage-jii himself. That is all the concession I am willing to make. I made a mistake and I will make it better."

The ANBU captian Wolf had to make a decision. He knew that he and his team could take out the clones and the original Naruto and Iruka but he was ordered to not hurt Naruto lethally. Also Naruto was not being traitorous. He only said that the scroll would be with him till he met the hokage which was fine so long as the scroll was safe-guarded. He also accepted an escort. So although the scroll should not be in the hands of an academy student, an insubordinate one at that he also knew that no true harm would come out of it.

He looked to see Iruka berate Naruto while Naruto steadfastly refused to back down from that stance. He signalled his team to relax. He said "Fine so long as we can escort you. Our priority is the scroll. Eagle will take care of Mizuki. Chunin Iruka, do you require immediate medical assistance or can it wait till after the report?"

Iruka said "Thank you for accepting. I am unable to move very fast but I do not require immediate medical assistance. I also need to make a report to Hokage-sama. So I will come along."

Wolf nodded and gave some signs. Eagle stored Mizuki into a statis scroll and his stuff into another storage scroll. After this Eagle vanished. Naruto meanwhile stored the scroll on his back while two clones went to help Iruka. With an honour guard of clones surrounding both Naruto and Iruka they moved towards Konoha. The ANBU kept up with them, one on each side except in front. It was a very weird sight.

Hokage's office

Hiruzen was still keeping track of them using the crystal ball on his table. He was impressed by Naruto's tactics and was thinking of field promoting him since the only reason he did not graduate is the clone jutsu but he used the Kagebunshin appropriately thus making him eligible. Apart from that he also showed effective tactics in taking down a chunin traitor reacting well and as required at various points of the situation. He just stopped the crystal ball from working when the ANBU team, Naruto and Iruka walked into his room after knocking.

Naruto immediately rushed to him and gave him a hug saying "I am sorry Jiji. I did not know it was a bad thing. I was told it was a test and that I had to steal the scroll and learn a jutsu on it to pass. So I did."

Hiruzen patted him on the head and said "It's ok Naruto. Be careful next time not to get tricked. But this time there are no issues. You did what an academy student would have done when a teacher commands you. Now most importantly, where is the scroll?"

Naruto silently handed over the scroll which Hiruzen handed to Bear. Bear vanished with the scroll. He slowly moved away from Naruto and said "Chunin Iruka, report."

Iruka immediately said "Academy student Naruto was tricked by Chunin Mizuki to steal the forbidden scroll masking it as a graduation test. I found Naruto and after clearing the misunderstanding between us started on my way back to the hokage tower with Naruto and the scroll. Chunin Mizuki attacked us at that point and released the secret of the kyuubi to Naruto…" the moment he said that there was a huge weight pressing down on everyone in the tower. Iruka struggled to keep standing and the ANBU were noticeably stiffer. Naruto was unaffected and was looking around in confusion. Hiruzen calmly said "Continue."

Iruka gulped a little and continued saying "I was injured and managed to stall him a little. When Mizuki was attacking to kill me, Naruto intercepted, used kagebunshin, henged into me and carried team warfare against Mizuki while moving us away safely. Then we signalled hoping to gain some ninja assistance since Naruto was losing. Then suddenly the tides changed since we got to know that Mizuki was defeated and when walking back found Mizuki unconscious and in his underwear with all his weapons and clothes placed at a side location. He had a lot of gashes on him and looked to have wounds on his knees and shoulders. We encountered the ANBU at that point and returned with them to return the scroll."

Hiruzen said "I see." He was turning to speak to Wolf when suddenly Iruka said "May I speak my mind Hokage-sama?"

Seeing Hiruzen nod Iruka continued "I make a recommendation to grant a field promotion to Academy student Uzumaki Naruto. His failure was due to him unable to make a clone but he has successfully demonstrated his proficiency with the kagebunshin as well as the other two. Apart from this, he shows teamwork and tactical skills and enough strength to take down a Chunin."

Naruto looked at Iruka wide-eyed. He didn't think that this could happen. He was still confused and had to get some doubts cleared about the kyuubi but this added to his load more. He looked hopefully towards Jiji. Hiruzen meanwhile looked at Iruka as if measuring him. After a few seconds he seemed to find what he was looking for and said "Noted. We will get back to this in a minute." Then with a stone-like face he turned to the ANBU and got his report.

Finally, he turned to Naruto and said "Taking into account today's incidents, Naruto you will not be punished. You have also shown enough skill and strength of character to be considered for a field promotion and under the recommendation of Chunin Iruka, I field promote Academy student Naruto Uzumaki to a Genin. Iruka will fill you in on the details tomorrow in the academy. Meet him there at eight in the morning. Now Bear, take Iruka-kun to the hospital and get him some medical assistance."

On hearing this, Iruka and Naruto relaxed and Iruka smiled at Naruto ruffling his hair. When bear arrived, he stepped away from Naruto and bear shunshinned Iruka away. At a signal, the other ANBU in the room vanished back into the shadows, not that Naruto could tell.

Now hiruzen said "Naruto, are you fine? Did you get hurt? Is there anything you want to ask me?"

Naruto said "I am fine Jiji. I did not get hurt, my clones did most of the fighting. I just supported Iruka sensei." Then in an angry tone he said "Why didn't you tell me about the kyuubi? I had to find out from some traitor who told me I was the kyuubi and not it's container. What the hell Jiji. I thought you trusted me."

Hiruzen said "I do trust you Naruto. But the kyuubi is a secret. I trust you with my life but I cannot yet trust you with Konoha's. You were an underperforming academy student who shouted anything and everything out loud. How would you have reacted if I told you about the kyuubi? I was going to tell you about it when you became a genin. I honestly expected you to pass this time. I am sorry that this happened and you had to find out this way but this was the safest."

Naruto said "So what else are you hiding from me w.r.t me Jiji? Do you know who my parents are?"

Seeing Hiruzen grimace he snarled in anger saying "You do know who my parents are don't you Jiji?"

Hiruzen sighed and said "Yes Naruto I do. And again, for your own safety, I cannot tell you this unless you can protect yourself or at least run away. This I will deem you worthy when you become a chunin with jounin level speed. I don't want to hide it from you Naruto but it is either then, or sixteen, or when I can see you mature enough that you will keep it safe. I am sorry Naruto."

Naruto looked angrier with tears running out of his eyes but he knew jiji's form face. He asked "Did they love me or did they leave me because of the kyuubi?"

Hiruzen said "They loved you Naruto. They died saving you from the kyuubi. I promise more when you become strong enough to protect yourself."

Naruto stilled at that and then his anger slowly became determination. He said "Just you watch Jiji. I will do that very fast. I noticed that I gained the experience of the kagebunshin which made my reflexes faster against Mizuki. Can I use it for other training as well?"

Hiruzen smiled at that saying "Good job Naruto. And yes, you can train with the kagebunshin for everything which is memory and chakra related. You cannot train physical muscles. That you have to do yourself. I would however recommend learning whatever you know thoroughly instead of learning thousand different things at once. Take two or three skills at a time and master them. Don't take too many or it won't profit you."

Naruto nodded determined saying "Thank you Jiji. When can I get my headband? And I need to sleep if I am to meet Iruka sensei tomorrow at 8. It's already 2. I will become strong fast enough for you to tell me who my parents are in six months Jiji. Just you watch."

Hiruzen smiled saying "Iruka will give you your headband. Go rest. I will be waiting Naruto. I will be happy if that is the case. Take care."

Saying this, Hiruzen dismissed Naruto who went home. He wondered how Naruto would go about his training and decided to help him out a little. He took out the war-time academy instruction books and handed them to Iruka with a note saying

" **Make Naruto master every jutsu he has learnt. Make him work on his chakra control, physical conditioning, henge and kawarimi first. Use Kagebunshin. He will explain it to you tomorrow. After that, slowly work on his taijutsu and get him to know the war time academy books inside out. By the time that is done, he should be chunin level. In the storage scroll you will find the list of chakra control exercises he has to do before he starts on the academy book and other training. You will also find a scroll containing the old academy books. Train him well. You have two weeks.**

 **Sandaime Hokage**

 **Hiruzen Sarutobi"**

Saying this, he had a note delivered by the ANBU to Iruka's home. Then he slowly turned to look out of the window at Konoha thinking about how this will change things.


	2. Chapter 2: A realization

**Forge your path**

 **A.N: This is a chapter that just expands on the basics and how I view chakra to a certain extent. It is a technique building and before training montage. This does not contain any training happening but a lot of discussion on the world to a small extent. I will skip over the training and only give a brief overview of it in the next chapter along with what he hoped to achieve and what he achieved. It won't be a blow by blow account of how he trained. Also, my naming skills for chapter names suck. I was wondering if I should just stick to writing the chapter number then thought, what the hell let's just name it.** **Constructive criticism is always welcome** **.**

 **Also finally, I know that this fic seems similar to a whole lot of fics written out there but I promise you, it will be different or as different as I can make it. I enjoy world building and details on how stuff works so I will be exploring a lot of that in my fanfiction. Hope you enjoy it.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

 **Chapter – 2 A realization**

The next morning was a normal one for everyone in Konoha. It was a normal day with the sun rising over the tree tops. People were just waking up while a few of the ninjas were already running about their daily business. Naruto woke up slowly and looked at the time. He saw that it was seven.

He was about to go back to sleep when he remembered that he had to meet Iruka at 8 at the academy. He then remembered the events of the previous day. He immediately started jumping all over the place yelling "Yay, I graduated!" over and over again. The rush and the happiness slowly faded as he remembered the rest of the day. He remembered that the kyuubi was sealed in him which while interesting did not change much since now the villagers seemed even more stupid to him. ' _I mean really, it's as if they want me to become the demon they think I am, why else would they treat me this bad?'_ he thought.

He started moving around getting out of bed and starting his usual routine with these thoughts in mind. He was really annoyed at the villagers and was thinking of pranking them big time. It was then that he remembered what had happened because he only goofed off. He almost died and so did Iruka sensei. It was only luck and stealth that saved him from Mizuki.

Mizuki was a chunin Naruto realised, but there was a huge difference in the skill levels of Iruka and Mizuki when even Iruka was a chunin, and an even greater difference between the skill levels of himself and Mizuki. The only areas where he possibly beat Mizuki was chakra capacity, stealth and trapping. Stealth and trapping was what saved him yesterday which at least let all those prank sessions come in use. But it did not change the fact that it was the very same prank sessions that got him there in the first place.

If not for his strategies sessions on how to escape pranks and immediately applying those further to kagebunshin, he would not have survived. He needed to get stronger. He would not be the cause for people close to him dying and would try to protect them. Sure that amounted to only four people in the village currently, and one of them did not need protecting since he was the strongest in the village but hey, one of them almost died yesterday because of him.

This thought sobered him up. He continued going about his morning routine and thought about all that hokage-jiji had said. About how he could use the clones to train and how they would help him master his techniques. About how he needed to be stronger and better. About how Jiji knew his parents but could not tell him till he grew stronger. He knew that the Hokage did not mean any harm to him but he also did not like the fact that things were being hidden from him. But he got a straight forward answer as to when things would be told to him and he now had another aim to work for.

It was seven forty and he was eating his breakfast. Instant ramen was somewhat tasty, not very healthy but was the only thing that was sold to him without too much trouble. He could not afford Ichiraku every meal since they also were costlier than Instant ramen and he needed a lot of ramen to satisfy his hunger.

He slowly changed into his jumpsuit after breakfast and rushed towards the academy.

 **IRUKA**

Iruka woke up today morning to find two scrolls in front of his bed. The events of yesterday came back to his as well as Naruto's fight and promotion. Damn, it was surprising. He read the scrolls and figured that Naruto would be coming to meet him today at 8 and that he is essentially planning Naruto's training for the next two weeks. But he can't do much without finding out about kagebunshin. Well, it can wait for Naruto to explain it.

For now, he got out of bed and started preparing for the day including explaining a field promotion, how it differs from a normal one, give Naruto his protector, and talk to him about training.

He had just reached the academy when in an orange blur, Naruto landed next to him panting and asking "Am I late Iruka sensei?".

Iruka smiled and said "No Naruto-kun, you are on time. A little early in fact, by about five minutes. Good job. Also, thanks for saving me yesterday. I would not have been able to save myself."

Naruto blushed and hugged him saying "It's ok Iruka sensei, you are welcome. I will try my best to save you. You are one of the only people in the village to care for me after all."

They walked into the academy in silence after that enjoying each other's presence when Iruka said "So Naruto, you graduated eh. Also Hokage-sama told me to help you train for the next two weeks before it's team selection. He asked me to explain everything that this graduation will entail but he also told me that you would explain the training uses of kagebunshin."

Naruto immediately started talking rapidly "That is awesome Iruka sensei. Cool, hey it better not be boring like your lessons ok?" at this Iruka gained a slightly irritated look but it vanished when Naruto continued "And what do mean everything that this graduation will entail? Isn't it like a normal graduation?"

Iruka shook his head saying "It is not like a normal graduation Naruto. In a normal graduation, genin candidates are tested again after the academy by their jounin sensei to see if they are good enough. Depending on the jounin sensei's recommendation they continue as genin or are passed on to other ninja who volunteered as sensei till there are no ninja to train them. If that is the case, they have two options, the first is to return to the academy the next year so that they can learn and pass the next jounin sensei's exam. The second is to enter the reserve force. In the reserve force, they do not have much of a sensei and are completely responsible for how they live, learn, missions etc. Also .."

Naruto interrupted saying "Iruka sensei, this is boring…".

Iruka immediately grew a little annoyed and said "To a ninja information is everything Naruto. You would not have been stuck like that yesterday if you had information that it was false. Listen and learn from everything that is being sad and try to understand what is important and what isn't."

On seeing Naruto apologize he continued "I am sorry for getting a little annoyed Naruto, but the fact is that even though it is boring, learning information is a good thing and will only help you. Now where was I, yeah, if they enter the reserve force, they are assigned simple missions and team stuff. Remember, the heart and soul of Konoha is team work. Also, while they are worse off as genin, they are much better thought of as chunin and even though it is difficult for them to attain elite jounin due to political reasons, most of the good chunin from there almost always go into ANBU."

Naruto asked "How does that tie up with me Iruka sensei?"

By this time Iruka and Naruto had reached the classroom where Iruka intended them to go from the beginning. It was the room in which the final tests were held and had a direct door to the outside training grounds. Iruka motioned Naruto to a seat and said "It matters because as a field promoted genin, although you will still be assigned a team, you do not lose the chance to become a genin if the jounin sensei rejects you, you will be put in the reserve force and will learn from there. There is no scope of you going back to the academy. But this at the same time makes it harder since you will need to pass your jounin sensei's test or you will find it more difficult to learn since there won't be anyone officially teaching you."

Naruto said "But why would that matter Iruka sensei, like you said, most of the stronger ninja are stronger because they made their own path, learning and mastering things on their own. Also any time that I am stuck I know I can always come to you and Jiji for help can't I?"

Iruka smiled and said "Yes you can Naruto. But I don't want you in that situation in the first place. A jounin sensei can teach you a lot more in a better manner than learning things yourself so long as you try to master everything you learn. But anyway, back to training. Tell me about the kagebunshin."

Saying this Iruka started rummaging in his desk for the forehead protector while Naruto said "It is a jutsu that transfers all the clone's memories and experiences to the user when the clone dispels. Also transfers some of the chakra back to the user. I asked Jiji and he told me it can be used to train most things and the only thing that he could think of that could not be trained off of the top of his head was physical training since the jutsu does not help with muscle building of any sort."

Iruka said "But he did not say anything regarding muscle memory did he?"

Naruto said "Muscle memory seems to be like memory and not muscle building, he didn't say anything about it so I guess it can be done."

Iruka smiled and took out a black forehead protector. He handed it out to Naruto saying "Here, this is yours. You are now officially a ninja in Konoha of genin rank. Also I am going to enjoy training you with kagebunshin. I am going to make you relearn the entire academy syllabus."

Naruto said "Nice try Iruka sensei, but Jiji told me that I should pick three or four things and master them before moving on to the next things. And I should first learn things I already know better and master them first."

Iruka smiled a sadistic smile and said "Awesome. I am going to enjoy this. Since the clones cannot do anything physical, we will be doing the physical workout. In the meantime, the clones will be working on chakra control, henge, kawarimi and weapon throwing. You are going to be crying when I am done with you and I will end up making a decent ninja out of you yet."

Iruka's sadistic smile unnerved Naruto and he asked "Hey Iruka sensei, what is chakra control and why chakra control? The jutsus I understand since I saw them used yesterday very effectively against a superior opponent. But weapon skills and chakra control I don't understand."

Iruka said "Naruto, I am assuming that you know what chakra is…" on seeing a blank look on Naruto's face he got an annoyed look on his face, then without shouting he took a calming breath and said "but as a reminder, it is a combination of physical and spiritual energy in the body that we use to perform jutsu. Does this make sense so far?" Seeing Naruto nod he continues "Now, the amount of chakra used affects how well the jutsu performs, sometimes more chakra strengthens a jutsu and sometimes more chakra weakens a jutsu and may even harm you. This Is why one always needs to use the accurate amount of chakra a jutsu needs when performing it. This way you can save more chakra while using jutsu. Are you with me?" Seeing Naruto gain a blank look he asked "What is the problem Naruto?"

Naruto asks "I got what chakra is and that it is possible to strengthen and weaken jutsu by using too much chakra, though I don't know of any so I am taking your word for it, but I did not get the jump regarding why one should always use the accurate amount and how that can save chakra?"

Iruka says "Think of it this way Naruto, you use about three times the amount of chakra that I use for Kawarimi." Seeing Naruto goggle he said "Now that is a bad thing because if we both had the same amount of chakra, I could use three kawarimi while you could only use one. And even I use more chakra than I should for that jutsu. So using exactly what you need can help you save chakra for other reasons and finish the job you need to do. You do not waste it. Do you understand me now?"

Naruto nodded and Iruka said "Now, to understand how chakra much chakra to use, you need to be able to control it. That is why we learn chakra control. The better the control, the easier it is to use chakra and the easier it is to learn and use jutsu. Does that make sense?" On seeing Naruto nod he continued "Now there are many types of chakra control but to a genin like you two are important. These are to do with the jutsu. Naruto did you know that there were tenketsu in our bodies which expel chakra and this is how we can do jutsu?" Seeing Naruto nod he smiled and said "Good, someone is paying attention. I am glad. Anyway, these tenketsu regulate how we use chakra. Regulate means control, they are like gates that let out chakra. Now there are two major problems with this. The first is the maximum amount that they can let at one instant. The second is the minimum that the can control."

Seeing Naruto's face go blank again he said "Think of this like a gate outside a village Naruto with each tenketsu being one gate. Now for some reason, you might need 500 people out instantly but your gate can only process 50. That is bad right?" On seeing Naruto nod he said "This is when you need a lot of chakra but your tenketsu cannot release that much chakra at the same time. Now imagine a situation where there is some sort of a security alert and the gate should be able to leave only one person at a time. This is when you need to be in control of what is the minimum amount of chakra a tenketsu can release. What if your gate cannot keep in only one person and every time it opens ten people get out, that is bad for security right?" On seeing him nod with a bright smile of understanding he continued "Did you understand that example Naruto. The two types of chakra control are going to be how to increase the amount of chakra one can release in an instant, and what is the minimum amount of chakra one can release. But before this, we need to be sure that the gate is functioning properly and that it can open and close and release people without harming them. Those are the exercizes we will be working on."

Naruto asked "I got the example sensei. The tenketsu is like the gate, the chakra is like the people. I need to be able to hold people in and release only one at a time, release a lot of people at once if necessary in the exact amount required, and before all this need to ensure that the gate is running smoothly and quickly because if I can release 500 people but it takes me a little time then it becomes an issue right?"

Iruka nodded and said "This is why we are going to be doing a chakra control exercise called tree climbing. Hokage-sama gave me a list of chakra control exercizes he wanted you to master. We go step by step. First, we do the tree climbing and the leaf holding exercizes. I will explain how to do the tree climbing exercize and then you can make your clones and get them to begin with the said exercizes ok?"

Seeing Naruto nod he said "you know the leaf holding exercize, it is to ensure that you can hold chakra inside and let it out in small amounts. The tree climbing exercize checks to see if you can flow your chakra appropriately. It is the equivalent of ensuring that your gates work properly. What you do is channel chakra to the bottom of your feet and slowly stick to the tree and walk up the tree. I will consider the exercize mastered when you can battle on that tree for one and a half hour without losing your control. Is that clear?"

On seeing Naruto nod, he said "Now for weapon handling, it is obvious that your speed, strength is slower than normal. So currently you are not very good up close. A good weapon aim can help you since you can start trapping people by effectively throwing weapons at them. You don't even have to be close and your clones can also do the same. This way, you can finish the fight without risking yourself. But this requires good weapon work and understanding of the weapons in question. As a genin, you need to understand how to throw kunai and shuriken fast and accurately. Apart from this it would help you if you had a sword which you can start training with since your clones can use it. Since we are not going to worry about a sword or taijutsu now, it is kunai and shuriken throwing. Apart from that, it is possible to perform jutsus silently, smokelessly and seallessly. This comes from a lot of practice and understanding the jutsu. This is what I hope to achieve for your kawarimi and henge. I want them to be sealless and smokeless. I also want them to be silent, at a huge range in case of kawarimi and at very little chakra cost. I don't know if it is possible but I want you to be able to kawarimi with a leaf. Is that clear?"

Naruto nodded saying "Perfectly Iruka sensei. Can we begin."

Iruka nodded saying "Yes Naruto, we can begin. How many clones can you make?"

Naruto said "About a thousand but I don't know how long they last."

Iruka said "Ok to be on the safe side let's make 600 clones for now. All of your clones should not dispel together to be on the safe side. I don't know what those many memories at the same time will do to you. Also every fifteen minutes, the clone that is doing the best will be asked to dispel. This is share the knowledge with other clones as well. Make 600 clones Naruto."

Saying this He made six water clones while Naruto made 620 clones. Naruto sheepishly rubbed the back of his head but before he could ask them to dispel Iruka said "The 600 of you know what you must be doing. The leaf holding and tree walking clones get to it. The henge and kawarimi clones also start working. The weapon clones follow two of my water clones, one for each weapon. They will teach you how to throw. Observe and ask any doubts. Apart from that, start working. The last twenty clones stay here."

Naruto clones shouted "Yes Iruka sensei" and immediately started segregating. One of the water clones was assigned to each clone group and it led them to the place they were practicing in the grounds. The last twenty stayed back. Iruka looked at them and said "I do not know how this will affect your memory since it may seem as if you are training constantly. You twenty clones will be having fun. Don't cause property damage but go explore the city. I want a detailed prank proposal for locations. I don't want you to prank it but think of how you would prank it, why prank it, what security measures are there and how you would bypass it and if this were not a prank what would be the impact. Form teams of three with the last team having two members."

Naruto and his clones looked surprised and asked "Are you basically asking us to goof off sensei?"

Iruka said "Naruto, I don't know about kagebunshin. Since you said that all memories come back as well as experiences, to you it will seem as if you have worked for the whole day over and over. This will increase your frustration and make you dull. A little bit of fun will help you lighten up. Also this is not fully goofing off since this way we can submit security leaks, their impacts and improve your training. Pranking after all is another form of trapping and I also used to be a prankster when I was a kid so this we can discuss. We can also discuss how to make it lethal, how to protect from it possibly. These things will help. To grow as a shinobi, it is important that you remember any place you visit, immediately identify its weaknesses and the various security concerns, how to escape from the place if required and how to destroy the place if required. Maybe even how to infiltrate the place if required. Pranking has helped you, I can see that from yesterday so why not make it work?"

Naruto clones nodded and with a huge smile said "Thank you Iruka sensei, we will be off."

They also left leaving only the original Naruto and the original Iruka together alone. Iruka looked at Naruto and said "Come, let us go get you a set of weapons and to pairs of weights. It is the least I can do for saving my life."

Naruto instantly says "Iruka sensei, you don't have to get me a gift for saving your life. I would have done it anyway. You alive is enough."

Iruka smiles, ruffles his hair and says "I know, but I want to. This will help you get better so why not. The easiest way to get into physical shape is weights if used properly. And I intend for you to use them properly, so let's go get them."

Saying this Iruka started walking towards the merchant district while Naruto followed.

 **AT THE MERCHANT DISTRICT**

Iruka and Naruto were walking down the merchant district slowly. The place was slowly starting to resemble a work place. It was almost 8:30 in the morning and they had to be up and running soon. A merchant here was setting up a fruit stand while another one was setting up a clothing rack. Stores were opening and people were bustling about on their business getting ready to open up for the day.

Iruka and Naruto were walking along the road talking about what Naruto intends to do and how he intends to train physically when Iruka started noticing all the glares Naruto was getting. He decided to change track a little and asked Naruto "Hey Naruto, what do you eat?"

Naruto looked at him a little confused saying "I eat a lot of ramen. Both instant and the Ichiraku one."

Iruka waits for a second and on seeing no continuation from Naruto asks "Go on, what else do you eat? Don't tell me that you eat only ramen."

Naruto nods his head while rubbing the back of head sheepishly saying "yeah Iruka sensei. I only eat the food of the gods. Awesome ramen it is. Why would I eat anything else when ramen is available?"

Iruka said "Naruto what do you know about how to body grows stronger?"

Naruto says "I don't know anything Iruka sensei. I just exercize till it aches and since I don't want to go to the hospital, I stop once it does and it gets better by the next day."

Iruka pauses then says "you say it gets better the next day, how much better? Does it still pain?"

Naruto just shakes his head while smiling saying "It does not ache at all Iruka sensei. After a good night's sleep it's as if the ache never existed. Same for injuries or illnesses. I don't get ill, and my cuts and bruises vanish in a day. It has been like that since I remember it. Why?"

Iruka looks at Naruto saying "That is because of how the body works. I am surprised that you can heal so fast. How one exercizes is that he performs the exercize till it aches, then pushes past the ache a little, then rests and waits for it to heal up doing other exercizes till then. Once it heals up, the muscles and tendons grow back stronger and he can do more exercize. That is how one physically grows strong. I am surprised that you heal in a day. That is amazing. It will help you a lot."

Naruto goes "Yeah, I am awesome dattebayo. Remember Iruka sensei, you are looking at the next hokage of Konoha. I obviously need to be awesome to do that."

Iruka patiently smiles and says "What I was getting at slowly is that although the muscles heal up, they need the right kind of food to get stronger. Just ramen isn't going to do it Naruto. You need to eat as well as you exercize. That is how you grow stronger faster. That is also probably why you are so short."

Naruto instantly puffs up angrily and says "You take that back Iruka sensei. I am not short. I am just late in getting a growth spurt."

Iruka patiently says "You won't get that growth spurt if you don't eat well Naruto. Why don't you eat vegetables and meat?"

Naruto says "I don't like vegetables Iruka sensei. And I don't know how to cook."

Iruka says "That does not prevent you from eating outside, I am sure it could be arranged for you to have a meal pack. There are many ninjas who do that." Seeing Naruto get all cagey for a second before smiling in what he was slowly recognizing to be a fake smile he says "Is it because they don't sell you good food?"

Naruto looks down a little and says "The shopkeepers don't let me shop for stuff. They usually chase me out or overcharge me. They also sell me stale goods. I could never cook veggies. If I can cook them, shopping for them is a very difficult task, then once I finally shopped for them and cooked them they tasted very bad. Probably a mixture of my cooking skills and them being bad. So I never liked them. I didn't know they were important."

Iruka says "I don't like the fact that they are overcharging you. Does everyone do that?" On seeing Naruto nod he continued "Well at least the store I am taking you to wont overcharge you. It is shinobi run and is the standard Konoha store. It is a very useful store to get your supplies from both weapon needs and any other shinobi supplementary equipment like clothes, weights, ink, scrolls, camping gear etc."

Naruto asks "Hey Iruka sensei.."

Iruka looks at him with a questioning gaze and Naruto continues "..what do shinobi eat while on a mission?"

Iruka smiles happy that Naruto has asked something and says "They eat two kinds of things. The first is whatever they can hunt and forage for. They cook a meal out of that. The second is that if they cannot cook a meal, they have these ration bars that are nutrient filled and can give an active shinobi all the nutrients he needs for a meal generally. It obviously varies shinobi to shinobi but in most cases, one nutrient bar per meal satisfies the shinobi."

Naruto then asks "How important would you rate me having a full meal to be?"

Iruka said "It is absolutely important Naruto. You cannot grow to be stronger if you do not eat well. You are slowing down your own growth."

Naruto asks "Then why can't I eat that shinobi nutrient bar every meal?"

Iruka says "You cannot eat that bar at every meal for two reasons Kiddo, the first being that it just gives you nutrients, doesn't fill your stomach. Not filling your stomach over a long time causes problems. The second is that it tastes horrible. Like really horrible. Most ninja I know prefer to avoid it because of that reason."

Naruto says "Well, how costly is it?" Iruka says "It costs about as much as one instant ramen."

Naruto nods and continues "I can afford one Ichiraku ramen and one instant ramen a meal. I cannot afford four Ichiraku ramen a meal since that is what it takes to fill me. If this nutrient bar can fill me and give me all the eat right nutrients, then why can't I just have it with a bowl of Ichiraku noodles every meal? That way I won't keep my stomach empty, will have tasty food and still be getting all the nutrients I need for a healthy lifestyle."

Iruka stopped shocked. This was indeed a solution. He said "That is a good idea Naruto. It might actually work."

Naruto just smiles excitedly and says "See Iruka sensei. I told you I am awesome."

Saying this they both enter the store called Shinobi needs.

At the store, as they walk in, bells jingle signalling that someone has entered. A man who looked around 35 with muscular arms, chest and shoulders visible through the tank top that he wore looked up at them from the magazine he was reading. He looks at Naruto first and raises his eyebrows but then sees Iruka and smiles. He gets off of his chair saying "Hey Iruka-kun. Welcome back. How's life? And the runt's a genin now I see."

Naruto bristled a little saying "I am not a runt." Which was ignored and Iruka replied saying "I'm fine Hatami san. I was just introducing the new genin to the shinobi supply store that is most commonly used by most ninja for standard equipment."

Hatami says "Don't let Iruka fool you kid; we sell the exclusive stuff as well but it wouldn't be exclusive if we sold it to everyone now would it." He chuckles and then continues "So what you here for?"

Iruka steps in saying "I am getting you a standard weapons kit and pouch along with four chakra weights Naruto. But this is the time you should look into the various clothing options and camping gear. You can also buy a day's worth of ration bars and then try it out to see if you like the taste today. If you do, then we can think of this as a monthly occurrence."

Hatami says "Ok kid, standard genin camping equipment costs 6000 yen while the expanded kit which is the kit most genin who are almost chunin prefer since it covers everything from pouches for water to gear to hold forage and it comes for 10000 yen.

Naruto says "How are the rates for the clothes? Also what would you recommend for someone who is just becoming a genin?"

Hatami says "Since you are just becoming a genin, you need to look a little presentable. Not like a fashion show but not going around wearing nothing or something torn. But that apart, you also need to train well. You probably won't get into too many tough situations right now but mistakes happen and tough clothes are a very viable option. I would recommend the standard ninja line for you. Take a few of those shirts, pants, a bulky jacket or two with a lot of pockets and you are done."

Naruto said "Can they hold my weights and do they come in orange?"

Hatami says "The orange that you are wearing is a shitty colour kid. It is a colour that is not good to wear. I know that a lot of people wear eccentric dresses but they are usually good enough that wearing those dresses doesn't matter to them. You are just beginning. I would suggest camouflage."

Naruto immediately says "Nothing doing. Orange is awesome and don't diss the colour man. Also, I am going to be awesome soon so I can wear it." And folds his hands, closing his eyes and acting as if not paying attention.

Iruka immediately bumps his head while Hatami says "So you aren't gonna wear anything that doesn't have orange eh?"

Naruto nods fervently while Iruka just sighs while resting his hands on his head. Hatami looks at him and says "Ok kid. Say what. I don't have anything in the colour you are wearing because frankly I find that to be a shitty colour. But I do have a black shirt with burnt orange flame like patterns on it. Some idiot thought it would be cool. How about that?"

Naruto asks "Can you show me the shirt?"

Hatami nods and says "wait here for like a min. I will go get the standard ninja uniform for you. You can put it on and see if you like it. If you do, get yourself seven sets of the thing and only three jackets. That should be fine."

Naruto goes a little scary eyed thinking ' _I hope it isn't going to be too pricey. This guy may not like orange but he is letting me shop here like a normal citizen without throwing me out and is actually helping me. I might as well work with him but I really hope it isn't too pricey.'_

Hatami comes back with a set of clothes and tosses it to Naruto. He says "Looking at you kid, I feel like those are the clothes that will fit you best currently. They are one size bigger but you will grow into them soon so it shouldn't matter. Go try them out. The trial room is in the back. I will get the other stuff you requested in the meantime."

Naruto nodded and went to the trial room while Iruka and Hatami spoke. He tried the clothes on and liked them. They were loose but they were good and he felt he would grow into them not that he was going to start eating well.

He came back saying "I like these clothes Hatami san. Assuming I take all the numbers you asked for without the genin kit, what is the price I have to pay?"

Hatami said "All your clothes together come to about 4000 yen."

Naruto instantly asks "All of them, seriously? I had to pay a thousand yen per orange suit that I am wearing. And even then I was told I got it cheap."

Hatami grimaces at him and says "You were cheated kid. Yes, all of the dresses you are getting including a pair of shinobi sandals comes to 4000 yen."

Naruto instantly excitedly says "I would like the deluxe kit then Hatami san. And all of the clothes you suggested. Iruka sensei, did you take what you wanted?"

Iruka saw Naruto jumping around in happiness and says "Yes Naruto, I took all of the stuff I wanted to get you. Hatami-san, please pack everything up and bill it up except for the weights. Also add a storage scroll in which he can carry his genin kit please."

Hatami says "No need Iruka, the deluxe kit comes with a storage scroll. No issues. I'll be back with everything."

Iruka says "Thanks, now Naruto, come here for a second and hold out your hands."

Naruto does that and Iruka ties the weights around his hand. Then he asks Naruto to do the same to his feet. While Naruto was doing that, he suddenly paused. Iruka asked "What happened Naruto?"

Naruto said "One of my tree walking clones popped, he managed to go up to about four feet which was the highest anyone went without a run. Same for the shuriken guy, he just popped actually. He managed to get five shuriken out of five continuously three times."

Iruka said "Good job Naruto. Your clones are learning. Nothing to worry about. Tie those weights around your feet."

Naruto did so and Iruka said "Those are chakra weighs. Add a little chakra and watch the number on the weights. That will tell you how many kg are added to each weight. From now, you will live with those weights and whenever you are fully adjusted to those weights, you will increase each weight by 10 kg, thus adding a total of 40 kg on the body. You remember the standard academy exercizes don't you?" Seeing Naruto nod he continued "Well, you know what we are going to be doing. You are going to be doing those exercizes and those stretches. Those are the basic exercizes and stretches that will help you strengthen your body. Now the academy rate is do the whole list once in four hours. For you we will be pushing it. Since you can already do it once in under three hours, we will make you do the whole thing twice under four hours, then rest, then do it again. We will do this till it becomes very easy for you. Then we will slowly increase the list. The only addition to the exercize list is running. We did not focus much on running but a ninja needs to be able to move. Every day, before you start another repetition of the exercize routine, you will run 10 laps around Konoha and slowly keep increasing speed. At the end of the session, I will consider you genin level when you can run ten laps around Konoha in half an hour. Is that clear?"

Naruto nods and says "yes Iruka sensei."

Hatami comes up in the meantime and watching this says "This is interesting kid. I hope you do well. Just be careful with those weights and take them off once a week at least to fight without them on. Also I would recommend reading Might Gai's book on How to exercize. He is probably the foremost authority on that topic in the village right now."

Naruto nods saying "Thanks Hatami-san, will do."

Hatami says "Don't worry kid, anyway, these are your purchases. Go have fun."

Naruto collects the purchases, pays, same for Iruka and they head towards the academy with Iruka getting Naruto to jog.


	3. Chapter 3: In the mind of Uzumaki Naruto

**Forge your path**

 **A.N: Warning that this chapter in particular has very little in terms of interactions, it is a mainly introspective and informative chapter. It is important in that it highlights the problems he has, how he has tackled them, how he has developed to be who he is in the fanfiction, and what the results were at the end of the first day of training. It is a little bit of world building and I hope you find it interesting to read. Constructive criticism is always welcomed.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto**

 **Chapter 3: In the mind of Uzumaki Naruto**

Chakra was a wonderful thing. It was present in everyone but not everyone was able to access it. It enabled powers beyond normal human capabilities. It increased maturation rate, healing rate, protected from many of the illnesses that plagued people who cannot use chakra, increased strength beyond levels that were imaginable, same with speed and reflexes and other functions in the body and a whole host of other things including control of the various elements in some form or the other.

The most important thing about it that most people tend to forget is that it is a form of energy at the end of the day. It is a combination of two different kinds of energies i.e spiritual and physical but is of a much greater potency than the sum of each of them individually and this potency makes it very hard for it to be controlled. People can divert the flow of chakra and move it to their needs after a lot of hard work but controlling chakra outside of their bodies, controlling the cakra in nature or the various elements themselves becomes a very hard task.

This also leads to effects internally. A person having a lot of chakra without the control has a much greater than normal development rate due to overabundance of chakra, a much greater reflex speed and accumulation speed again due to overabundance of chakra, and finally a lot more energy than normal. So much so that it always feels like he is doing nothing. Nothing tires them unless they use a lot of chakra. Even then due to their development rate, the chakra returns and along with it the frustration that they could not do anything. They have not done anything, they are sitting in the same time. For people like that time seems very slow since they take in information a lot faster. They always need to be active, always need to be doing something. And they get classed as energetic without people understanding that they are normal people in dire need of chakra control.

This is also one of the reasons why the Uzumaki clan was infamous. They had a huge amount of chakra which was also one of the most potent in terms of density. This had two outcomes. The first is that due to the density, they packed more power in less chakra and second is that their bodies over time were saturated with this chakra and adapted to it very easily making them live much longer than the others, giving them a huge reaction speed, giving them a form of healing that is almost regeneration depending on the amount of chakra that a person has and it's potency. They are taught chakra control from a young age.

This is also the reason that they were considered seal masters. They had a much greater information intake speed and much greater processing speed and power on average. They could understand the various implications of a particular action in the sealing language much faster than a normal person. This along with their long life meant that they achieved a lot more individually than a single person from any other clan could have. The sealing also was their life saver. It could keep them occupied, it required them to actually process a lot of information in the correct manner at a very fast pace. It also required them to be constantly attentive and concentrating heavily on the seal they make.

This along with the chakra control training at the start of childhood itself led them to be somewhat hyperactive but relatively calm. Let them lead normal lives without frustration and boredom. Let them occupy themselves and apply themselves thoroughly and completely into a difficult art that demands their hundred percent and leaves them satisfied that they have achieved something despite the fact that they had done things that would have taken normal people a lot more time. They were biologically attuned to it and required some form of keeping themselves occupied or they would eventually be driven crazy. This was also unfortunately one of the greatest kept secrets of the clan. They did not let the outsiders know about this as if they did, then all the outsiders had to do was prevent them from being able to work so that the clan could self-destruct.

This situation was even worse with naruto. He was an uzumaki (even though he did not know it) from the clan. He also had the greatest tailed beast stored in him in the form of the nine tails. What made the situation even worse is that due to being born in the container of the previous jinchuriki, he already had really potent chakra stores that were immensely dense to survive the chakra that flowed through his mother kushina. Being an Uzumaki, he already was supposed to be born with huge chakra reserves and somewhat potent chakra. Adding to that, he was born to the previous container of the nine-tails and his chakra had to grow more potent to adapt to the nine tails chakra leaking in kushina's chakra coils. And finally added to this, was the fact that he was made the new nine-tails container at birth with his seal being designed in such a way that a little amount of the chakra of the nine-tails bled into him and made his already large and dense chakra reserves larger and more potent. This resulted in him being insanely adapted.

His healing bloodline was almost on the level of regeneration. He was never hurt bad enough to test if it was regeneration but considering that he did not know about it it should not matter. But this applied to other things as well. His control was going to suck. He needed much less chakra than others needed to perform the same jutsu, what this also meant was that he needed much more control to perform the same jutsu as well as the fact that with his potency and his reserves, he could potentially spam ninjutsu like no other. His information intake and processing was also much faster than normal. Almost on the level of a bloodline (which it was), his natural body was enhanced due to his chakra having no other outlet for almost twelve years. It set into his senses making all his senses much sharper than was considered normal. It also left him being sensitive to chakra enabling him to be a sensor.

The downside was that since there were no more Uzumaki in the village and nobody had anytime to prepare or go through Kushina's scrolls (they were considered clan secrets after all), nobody knew that he needed to learn chakra control as early as possible and that he needed something with which to occupy his extreme energy levels. In the early days, it was contemplating why the village hated him and how to possibly avoid the various attacks that might have happened. No one managed to attack him because of the fact that he avoided them very efficiently as well as the fact that the ANBU would have captured them and they would be punished. Finding patterns was a pastime that helped him occupy his mind.

This changed when he started having more chakra. He needed some way to occupy himself and calm himself down. He was smart enough to understand that. So he started physical training. Running, exercising all of that once he knew the basics of how from the academy. He also noticed that he was somewhat sabotaged in his learning since no one taught him to read and write properly and while he was thankful for that since it kept him occupied a lot longer than normal trying to figure out how to read and write since he knew how to speak, that along with other subtle but not so subtle ways in which the academy sabotaged him let him know that they did not want him to be completely informed and well prepared. This from his years of experience with the village left him completely back to square one of trust nobody.

He started the academy exercises and in the beginning they were tiring him out and keeping him occupied. But considering his body and his near regenerative healing factor, it would not last long. He did not know about weights so he was forced to do a lot of repetitions to achieve the same calm that he had previously. It eventually got so bad that he had to physically exercise all day to keep himself calm. That would not do, since he had a lot more to learn about being a shinobi other than just exercising his body. So he started on his next strategy. Being a shinobi meant being able to sneak around, being able to get into places one is not supposed to and being able to trap or attack people without anyone knowing who did it. A perfect shinobi was not noticed in any manner when he did his mission and vanished once done. The only time they would be noticed was when they wanted to be i.e to talk to the people who they were helping.

He implemented this to the extreme. What better way to train stealth than to prank the best. What better way to train strategy than to again prank the best. Same for information gathering as well. Pranking the various clans and shinobi offices required a lot of thought since they had guards that would easily pick up an academy student on their radar before he even got a chance to do anything. This led him to having to learn a lot about a variety of things to be able to successfully prank people. He did not learn the skills that were taught in the academy too much since from his experience they did not teach him right anyway, so he went about with trial and error.

This pranking decision kept his mind occupied for a long time. The amount of work he needed to do was a lot and a lot of planning and strategic thinking was involved. He was caught the first few times due to his inexperience. He learnt from every time he made a mistake by asking what his mistake was and not repeating the same thing ever. Fortunately or unfortunately for him, no one noticed that he was that capable. The people who knew of his parents knew that to be a smart kid was literally in his genes. The people who knew the uzumaki in detail knew that every uzumaki was insanely smart and that naruto also carried that gene. It was a 100% gene. The more chakra they had, the smarter they were and naruto had insane chakra levels. But the people who knew this were very few and when they noticed his abysmal scores, they figured he was the broken one due to having the kyuubi sealed in him and forgot about it letting other decisions occupy their mind.

This satiated him for another two to three years by which time, due to lack of control training he had way too much chakra and very little control. Also pranking had gotten a lot easier since although he uncovered the various security loopholes, no one worked on covering them and so he could use the same kind of loopholes again. It usually took six or seven plans using the same loophole before it was covered, but by then to plan those pranks, he would have already uncovered more holes in the security. This led to the pranking being a less occupying task over time. This along with his chakra levels, led to him being too energetic again. The pranking had helped but did not do it to a large extent. He was just sane due to the pranking, he was not calm. Over time this reduced and he eventually started getting too hyper again. That was when he decided that he would let him be chased due to pranking. That would make it a very intensive activity. Lots of active options to choose from, while running away from the elite. He knew that hokage-jiji would not let anyone lethally harm him or hurt him really badly. This led to planning of stage pranks without being affected by anything else and affecting only the intended targets in the run.

This was something new that he learnt and his chases were legendary. Split second decisions on how not to get caught, how to evade capture, what routes to take, surprise ambushes by the various ninja, better pranks etc all with the bare minimum of planning due to having to plan on the spot and thus keep himself occupied more was something that he enjoyed a lot. It actually calmed him down, not just kept him sane but calmed him down. For him when he had to take those decisions, time seemed to slow down and he could calculate every aspect of the decision he had made and how to change circumstances to his advantage. The disadvantage of this was that this moved him away from long term planning since this was what kept him calm.

He learnt a lot from this and also managed to exercise. If someone had noticed, his grades in the academy fluctuated. When he was calm, he was the top. 100 % and no one could compete with him in almost anything except for chakra control. When he was not, he could barely pass. People passed it off as a fluke or an area of interest. This continued till the day he graduated and would have continued more till he learnt to use kage bunshin. Using that much chakra at one go made him calm. Something that he liked a lot and learnt to enjoy over his life.

It was the end of the first day of training. He was meditating slowly waiting for all of his clones to dispel one after the other. And it was immensely calming. For him, being calm was a drug. It was something that he strived for everyday since it let him think clearly without the hyperactivity or the insaneness. The ramen addiction was a secondary thing. Pranking was a necessity. As was being loud, hyper all the time. All of them were subconscious methods to let go of the energy he had since he yearned to stay calm. He was introduced to the concept of meditation and it was very difficult for someone like him. Not paying much attention to the thoughts passing through his head, watching them like an observer, it was very difficult for him. But it was very calming, something he yearned for and he would work on it till he could maintain the calm in his head the whole time. That was what he decided.

This was further reinforced along with his kage-bunshin training. Using that much energy made him calmer. For him from this day, training with the kage-bunshin was not a necessity as a tool to get stronger but a necessity as a tool to help him stay calm. Today reinforced that as it was the first day in a long time that he felt this calm. His memories were slowly returning from his clones where they dispelled group by group.

The first group to dispel were his tree walking group. He was glad. They had finished the tree walking exercise before lunch itself. They were able to walk up and down a tree without any sort of a run-up before lunch. Every clone that had made a breakthrough had dispelled letting everyone know the breakthrough and implement it. That knowledge sharing was a parallel perspective solution to a serial problem since it would be obvious that since everyone was attempting the same technique, the chances of the technique in a similar manner was very high. But this knowledge sharing meant that once any one had made a breakthrough by luck or anything else, everyone would instantly know and the problem was solved and could be further build upon. This helped him finish the basic aspect of the tree walking before lunch. After lunch, his clones continued to do this exercise till they had gained somewhat of a mastery which was when they were able to fight on the trees for at least one and a half hour in any orientation without falling off or slipping even once and without needing any concentration. This was achieved by the end of the day.

This was a good thing since that chakra control in his body further calmed him down but he did not guess the reason and figured it was because he was meditating and tired. The next group to dispel were the leaf sticking group. They could get the leaf to stick but not more than fifteen minutes. The longest time some clone got the leaf to stick was by luck and was around 13 minutes. Something that no other clone had repeated so far. Again, he considered mastery was when he could stick the leaf for at least one hour while doing so without needing any concentration. He was far from this as even with all the concentration he had, he could get the leaf to stick on average for about 10 minutes before it flew off.

He would work more on this the next day. The next group to dispel was the kawarimi group. The success of this group managed to get a smile on his face. They had managed to cut down the hand seals required for the jutsu from five to none. They had also managed to increase the range of the jutsu and do it silently. Next they were going to practice doing it with items that are much smaller than themselves instead of items their size, moving items, at a thought without any preparation, without any concentration and as a reflex, as a form of movement finally when being able to shift with air in line of sight, reduce the disorientation when they kawarimi, kawarimi in whatever position they wanted to irrespective of how they were standing or how they were moving and kawarimi items they had with items away from them without substituting themselves. That was the target they had set themselves. Many of these targets required a lot of practice and a lot of tinkering around with the jutsu itself, it was time to look at jutsu creation a little while also look at the kawarimi in detail. With a notification in his mind to do that tomorrow, he was happy with their success and what they had planned to achieve.

The next group was the henge group. This group had also done good work. They had discovered that he used a slightly different version of henge with Iruka sensei's help. This discovery was an accident but was a good thing. They managed to get the henge down from three hand seals to none. It still required smoke to change and was not very fast, it required a little bit of concentration where he had to stop doing everything else and focus only on the henge, but due to the fact that it was a physical transformation instead of a genjutsu, it made dispelling it much harder with characteristics similar to a kage-bunshin jutsu. It was decent progress but they had so many ambitions that they wanted much more. The target with henge was to be able to seamlessly shift from one form to another at will. Fix only certain parts of the body like turning a corner and one instant a grown man and the next a kid. Also being able to hold up half images … like the person in front sees something while the person behind sees something else. The ultimate aim with henge was to be able to seamlessly and without any concentration or indicator shift shape while holding the rest of the view the same. Taking this to the extreme would be a form of camouflage, where the henge constantly changes to reflect the scenery behind the person using it. This is the target and it required a lot of work to get there.

So while he was happy with the work done by the clones, neither him nor the clones felt they had made a huge impact on their end goal. They required a lot more work on the henge. He did not know how long it would take him to be able to henge like that or how much he would have to tinker with the technique, but he knew that this is what he wanted to do with henge and he had the time and the man-power to do it. Apart from this, he also needed to see all the things he could henge into and create strategies for was a very important task for both kawarimi and henge and he wanted to assign a team to do just that. The strategies created would be simple strategies that he would treat like basic katas to a taijutsu. And elaborate strategies would be combinations of these strategies. He had only henge, kawarimi and kage-bunshin right now. He needed to be able to do a lot with them and he decided he would.

After this thought, he paid attention to the next group of clones that dispelled and was very happy with their progress. The weapons group had excelled beyond even his expectations, they had managed to hit all the targets by the end of the day with both kunai and shuriken. This from him being able to hit only four out of ten targets with kunai and five with shuriken. They had managed to hit both the easy ones and the advances ones at a distance. They even had a decent accuracy at the most advanced ones in the mobile targets. Their speed was slow but that was something that could be remedied with practice. As was the amount of kunais and shuriken they could throw simultaneously. He never figured that he would be able to improve his accuracy from very bad to almost perfect in the span of a day. Now they had to work on a fast draw technique, an increase in throwing speed and an increase in the accuracy aspect for mobile targets for different speeds. They also had to make it an almost reflexive action to throw a kunai when ambushed. It was a huge task but he figured it would not take much time.

He also thought that if things progressed as they are, he would be able to work on a simple two kunai kenjutsu style that could possibly be replaced by swords. On the whole, the day was very good for his clones. His pranking clones got the data that iruka sensei needed since they were used to doing it for their pranks. That was not much of a loss since he used a lot of that when he pranked the village anyway.

He got up from his meditation to see a setting sun. His body was not very sore. He had surprisingly already adjusted to the weights added to his body after running through two whole repetitions of the exercises that he had to do. This was surprising since while he knew his body adapted quickly, he didn't think it would be this quick. He was almost back to normal and decided to do one last repetition of the exercise set that he was assigned again before he went to sleep. He got up and looked around to see Iruka sensei standing against a tree in the shade. He said "Hello Iruka sensei. How long have you been waiting?"

Iruka said "Hey naruto. Around 20 minutes. I never thought I would see the day that you were meditating.".

Naruto chuckled saying "I also never thought I would see this day, but this is surprisingly helpful. I am going to be doing it everyday for half hour physically, I also will probably assign the 20 clones that you assigned to pranking to meditation instead. The results they gave you today were ones that I figured out around 2 years ago. I also have figured out more sore spots in the last two years. Meditation seems to help me more."

Iruka said "That is good. I remember reading that the chakra flow exercise is a good form of both chakra control and meditation. I will look into getting that for you in the morning tomorrow. How was the day so far?"

Naruto said "Well, I am not sure you if you already know this but apparently my clones have completely mastered tree-walking, they could get a leaf to stick for about 10 mins on average. The kunai and the shuriken are accurate even though they lack speed, and need more accuracy against a moving target. I also need to be able to make it somewhat of a reflex to throw kunai and throw more than one kunai at a time. I probably wont get this much time to carefully throw my kunai in the field right?"

Iruka said "Yea you wont naruto. But we have two weeks to correct it now and even then most genin still take some time before they throw the kunai. So it's nothing to worry about."

Naruto said "Thanks for telling me Iruka sensei, but I am looking to master everything that I am learning since that seems to be a good idea. This means that I will not move on to too many other skills till I am satisfied that I have learnt what I was supposed to learn to my satisfaction which in this case is to get the mobile advanced targets with atleast 90% accuracy while throwing 10 kunai in under 3 seconds. It seems like a reasonable target to me for the next two weeks considering the progress I made today."

Iruka said "At the pace I saw, you will probably get it by the end of the week. How was the food, did it taste good? You had a nutrition bar every meal along with your normal food. Did it fill you up?"

Naruto said "It tasted a bit weird initially but then I told Teuchi-jiji what I was doing and he played around with his spices a little to make it taste better. It was good enough for me to eat it. And yes, it filled me a lot better than the normal food in a much lower quantity."

Iruka smiled and said "It's amazing how you come up with such wacky ideas at times and they seem to make perfect sense. So you are having trouble with low chakra control eh? That was somewhat expected but lets hope it gets better. At the current rate, it does not seem like you are going to be using much of genjutsu or medical ninjutsu."

Naruto smiled a little saying "Iruka sensei, I dont know much about them to use them anyways. This is very helpful coz now I can walk on trees. Also they seem to be able to help me with my jutsu. I managed to get them down seallessly. I am going to try to switch with a leaf and henge without a smoke. Once done with all the chakra control exercises you have in store for me I will also probably play around with the kage-bunshin. Also can you please teach me the shunshin jutsu Iruka sensei. It is awesome and I want to be able to do it. Please?"

Iruka looked on at naruto's round eyed pleading face and sighed a little saying "If you are done with all the chakra control that was assigned or two weeks, then sure. I will teach you the shunshin jutsu Naruto. So I take it you are going to rest now?"

Naruto shook his head saying "I need to test out everything I have learnt sensei. Then I am going to do one more set of all the exercises that I did. Only then will I sleep. My body already seems to have adapted to this weight. I might as well use it well."

Iruka looked on flabbergasted. He was surprised that naruto was already adapted to the weights. If he continued at this rate, he could easily become a taijutsu and kenjutsu monster. It was not easy to imagine that the dead-last, the guy who messed everything up had so much potential. He watched on as Naruto walked up the tree on the first try, then held the leaf on his forehead for about 3 minutes before dropping it intentionally. He henged seallessly into the sandiame and then kawarimied without handseals with Iruka himself with a mischevious look on his face. The sudden change in location caused Iruka who was leaning against a tree to fall.

He looked up to see Naruto laughing while leaning against the tree. Then he came up to Iruka sensei saying "Sorry about that Iruka sensei, you were so deep in thought, I could not resist a prank. Anyway, do you wanna come see me at the range?"

Iruka nodded and walked along. After three or four test throws, Naruto managed to nail better scores than his clones had managed on every range that they tried.

Seeing this, Naruto finally said "Yup Iruka sensei, everything seems to work fine. I will go finish up my round of exercise then rest. See you tomorrow morning at 8? Also could you tell me the next chakra control exercise just so I can prepare for it?"

Iruka said "The next exercise is the water-walking exercise. It is like the tree climbing exercise but instead of regulating a constant amount of chakra into the bark of the tree, you will have to adjust the amount of chakra you are sending constantly to be able to stand on the water. At the first level, it is standing on still water, the second level is standing on running water, the third level is standing on rapids and the final level although this is not confirmed is walking up a waterfall using water walking. I will consider this exercise master if you can fight on water for an hour and a half without consciously working on the control. Even if you finish one level, you are more than done in terms of chakra control exercises that genin and chunin need to do with the other levels in this being around high chunin level."

Naruto nodded saying "Thank you Iruka sensei. I will see you tomorrow morning at 8 in the academy again right?"

Iruka nodded without saying anything to naruto and waved goodbye. As he watched him go Iruka realised that he was watching someone who had mastered tree walking in a day, someone with humongous chakra reserves who had not finished the tree walking exercise but actually mastered it in one day. He could not believe that he like the others believed that Naruto was the dead last. He was beginning to realise that nobody probably paid attention to Naruto and that by the time they did, it had gotten too late and he was not interested anymore. He also realised that an interested Naruto could achieve a lot. He walked towards the sandaime's office to report for the day.

Naruto in the meantime, was running. But when he reached the outskirts of the village, he made sure to do so near the water. The moment he reached, he instantly made clones again so that they could practice the water walking, both in still waters and in running waters. He did not know about any whirlpools around here and rapids could be found near one of the waterfalls, so he would first get this and then the rest. Meanwhile, his other clones worked on leaf sticking, tree climbing with leaf sticking instead of weapons, kawarimi and henge. He had effectively replaced only one group since he could not see that well in the dark right now and thought it would be better to practice weapons for sometime in the day till he was confident and then attempt at night. He also looked around and noticed that he had made 850 clones with the same amount of chakra he used in the morning. This was surprising when he realised that he was wasting that much chakra and his chakra was still not controlled properly.

So the numbers were assigned differently with 810 clones being forced to work in the same groups as the morning while the last forty were assigned to meditate. When Iruka said chakra flow, Naruto understood that to mean meditating on the flow of chakra in his body and he thought he should give it a shot. If nothing else, it is still meditation. Thinking this, after making the clones, naruto went on his evening exercise trip and then ate and ended his day happy with himself. Life was looking good for him and most importantly, he was feeling calmer than ever before which itself made everything else better.


	4. Chapter 4: Iruka's concerns

**Forge your path**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own naruto in any manner**

 **Chapter 4: Iruka's concerns**

Iruka was standing outside the sandaime's office. It was a week since the training with Naruto began and Iruka was a little agitated with the way things were going. He needed to ask for some advice. After waiting for a few minutes while the secretary confirmed his appointment, he was let inside the sandaime's office. It was late at night but the sandaime was still in office doing his paperwork. He was puffing away with a pipe while doing his paperwork. He looked up when seeing Iruka with a smile on his face and put his paperwork away.

Hiruzen said "Hello Iruka-kun. Tell me, what brings you to my office today?"

Iruka said "Hokage-sama, I am here primarily for three reasons. The first is for some advice on the naruto's training and to give you an update. The second is to ask for future directions with regards to naruto's training and the third is to change the team list I gave you at the start of the week a little. I think I should start in the order i gave the items so that you can understand why the team shift."

Hiruzen said "Regarding the team shift, I think you should explain it to the jounin sensei as well if I like your suggestions first. The jounin sensei will be here in forty odd minutes. So you have around half an hour."

Iruka nodded and said "Hokage-sama. I will start with Naruto's progress. His clones really help him a lot. He also is a very smart boy. He probably didn't pay attention because he was bored or some such but when things are explained to him in a manner in which he can understand, he can draw a lot of insight from them and extends them to far away concepts. Like you ordered, I focussed on his chakra control first. At this point I can conclude that he has huge chakra reserves. More than anyone I have ever seen display and he displays that casually so I am assuming that it is not the complete extent of his reserves which is scary hokage-sama."

Hiruzen interrupted saying "Why would you think that Iruka?"

Iruka said "Hokage sama, he said that he is using the same amount of chakra since he started the training to make kage-bunshin in the beginning. He has not increased it or decreased it in any way. But the number of kage bunshin has changed immensely. From being able to summon around 600 bunshin in the start of the week, today morning he summoned around 1700 bunshin all having a little more chakra than the bunshin he made when he made six hundred. And from what he says, and I believe him because he has not lied to me with respect to his training yet, is that it is around one tenth of his total chakra that he can feel. That is a huge amount according to me since I have not seen anyone make 1700 kagebunshin with as much chakra as a low chunin ninja hokage sama. His clones individually seem to have almost as much chakra as me. They just don't seem to be able to control it."

Hiruzen silently puffed on his pipe thinking about it. If that were true then he had severely underestimated naruto's chakra reserves. After thinking about it for a minute he asked "How is his chakra control ?"

Iruka said "That is where the second surprise is hokage sama. I don't think that the standard exercises are going to help him all that much. I frankly don't think he will ever be able to perform a genjutsu, at least a lower ranked one, maybe he can perform a genjutsu that is chakra intensive although I doubt it. He cannot release low amounts of chakra. It is extremely difficult for him. After a week of the leaf sticking exercise, he could stick four leaves on his body and struggle to stick it for one and a half hour. I am going to start him on the leaf rotation tomorrow."

Hiruzen said "So low amounts are not so good. What about the other exercises?"

Iruka said "He aced them hokage-sama. He managed to master tree walking as per the scroll's instructions of mastering within a day. By the next day morning, he managed to master water-walking on running water to the scroll's expectations. I know that you meant for him to do the rest later once his other aspects come up to snuff but he insisted on continuing with his chakra control saying he read that it is easier to do other things once his chakra is better controlled. He has finished the kunai balancing exercise being able to balance 10 kunai on his fingertips. He has even finished kunai floating and done the same for senbon as well requiring only minor adjustments. He then moved on to rock floating on increasing amounts of rocks trying to increase the amount of chakra each tenketsu can give off. Today morning, he was floating his body on the edge of a kunai while floating two rocks that were my size in height and pretty long in width, saying that if he managed to do this, then he was able to generate enough chakra from his tenketsu to hold heavy weights meaning that he can release a lot. I was surprised since I do not know of many jutsu that require it. Off the top of my head, I can only think of strengthening jutsu but even they do not require this much chakra."

Hiruzen being a professor smiled and being unable to offer up an opportunity to teach said "That was smart of him. You are saying he is done with all the higher exercises in the scroll but is not progressed very far on the ones which release less chakra? And as for a jutsu, summoning a boss summon requires that much chakra at least. Maybe many times that amount. Depending on how much weight he was having."

Iruka looked a little surprised at that information but continued "Yes hokage-sama. He can release a lot of chakra from the tenketsu in his body. He trailed a rock along his body in meditation over and over of increasing size to be able to increase the tenketsu output from every tenketsu in his body."

Seeing Hiruzen nod to move on Iruka continued "He also combined the leaf sticking exercise and did it with the tree walking and the water walking on still water. He is struggling to do it with moving water. Out of all the exercises you gave on the scroll so far, he only can't do rapid walking, waterfall walking, leaf floating, sand sticking, sand floating and sand separation. He can do all the others. He even meditates on chakra flow and can sense and calm and manipulate his chakra internally with a thought. That capability of his was very surprising hokage sama."

Hiruzen was surprised again saying "That is unexpected. I gave that scroll thinking it will take him at least a month to get all those chakra control exercises. This is good news so what is the problem?"

Iruka said "It is good news hokage-sama. The problem is that that is not all he did. He weapon throwing has improved beyond recognition. When he started out he could hit the basic range around 5 times and the advanced range around 2 times. Now he can hit any range in the academy including the mobile one with 100% accuracy. He is decently fast in his throws. He still takes a little time to aim though but that is something that is very easy to rectify. I am guessing that it will vanish in one or two days. His throws are some of the fastest in his graduating class and if he took the weapons test now, he would top it with extra marks for accuracy and speed."

Seeing Hiruzen nod Iruka continued "Apart from that, he has mastered henge, kawarimi and shunshin. I had told him that I would teach him shunshin if he mastered water-walking. He was done with water-walking by second day noon itself on running water. So I taught him the shunshin and all he did all week was master them and tweak them."

Hiruzen asked "What changes did he make Iruka?"

Iruka smiled a little and said "He could do the kawarimi seallessly, smokelessly, and in an instant. He always has around 5 clones around him but he can kawarimi with a leaf so it should not be an issue for him. Apart from that, he has increased the range of his kawarimi to around 1 km. That is as far as the longest he can see. He is trying to be able to kawarimi with the air itself and use it as a travel method. I don't know how successful he will eventually be but his kawarimi with a leaf at a distance of 1 km itself is very impressive. He removed the disorientation. He went to the library and looked up some jutsu theory basics book and learnt about the original kawarimi from that. Not the seven seal one hokage-sama. The original 29 seal kawarimi that removes all disorientation. He set about trying to master that and the achievements that I have told you about so far are for that kawarimi. He completely forewent the use of the five seal kawarimi that the academy teaches."

Hiruzen smiled a little "So he found the book I wrote eh?"

Iruka with a confused look asked "Hokage-sama?"

Hiruzen said "He had sent me a clone asking me about jutsu theory since he heard I had mastered every single jutsu in konoha. I directed him to a basic jutsu book that I wrote once I had mastered jutsu regarding how to go about learning and mastering jutsu. I added the book into the academy curriculum list of books that I gave you but I am glad he started early. I am surprised he progressed that far though."

Iruka said "That is not all hokage-sama. After mastering the version of shunshin I taught him, he looked for the same in your book and mastered that version as well. Again, seallessly smokelessly and without any disorientation or extra chakra. There is no indication that he is moving or going to move. No chakra build up at all. He moves faster than I do and in shorter time as a reflex. With that and kawarimi and kagebunshin, I don't think anyone below jounin can touch him hokage sama. He may not be able to fight with it yet but he is beginning to make those jutsu battle worthy. Today he was succeeding to chain shunshin and managed to chain four shunshin before he quit. That is not all, his henge also is different. He landed on a completely different version of henge in some manner in the academy. His henge is solid. It cannot be dispelled like a genjutsu. He tried teaching it to me but I was unable to learn it. In terms of handseals, there does not seem to be a difference so I assume he is missing some handseals that he is compensating for internally."

Hiruzen looked thoughtful and said "Solid you say?"

Iruka looked ragged and said "Yes hokage sama. Solid. He already has come up with strategies where he is henging his clones into kunai and throwing them so that the clone can surprise people. He is also creating a backup team strategy where he henges four clones to create something like a back-up which can surprise people. With the different heights of the various clones, he can kawarimi to dodge attacks and attack in return. It is so far turning out to be an interesting style hokage sama and I haven't even taught him any taijutsu."

Hiruzen said "Why are you looking so ragged then Iruka-kun?"

Iruka said "I don't know what to do with him hokage sama. I don't know what to teach him. I can teach him the academy taijutsu but it will not suit him well. His body structure is not a fit for it and he will struggle. With the kagebunshin, he can learn any taijutsu he likes but I do not know any other taijutsu. I am done with his chakra control, his henge kawarimi. I also don't want to teach him any advanced jutsu since frankly, he does not need them. The way he is right now, I don't think any genin in konoha will be able to beat him in an all out spar, maybe most chunin also cant. The only thing pulling him down is his lack of speed and experience. Once he gets a few jutsu of each element, designed for different things like kill and capture, experience to work as a team or lead it, and speed and strength he is a sure candidate for chunin. I give him a month maximum before he becomes too strong to be considered genin anymore and that is counting the week you gave me hokage sama. The only thing that slows him down is his physical growth and even that is much faster than normal. He currently adjusts to about 40kgs a the end of the day he is back to normal. His body is almost fully adjusted and by the next morning, it's as if he is not even wearing weights. He currently has 240 kgs of weight on him and is mid genin in speed. When he drops them, he becomes high genin to low chunin. A few months later, he will easily blow past mid chunin and become tokujo."

Hiruzen finally smiled. He said "I think I understand your problem Iruka. You feel you should have given him this attention earlier and made him stronger. You also feel like you have failed in bringing out this talent in him in the academy. Finally you feel like he is growing too fast and you don't know what to teach him with his mental maturity considering that he does not have any experience and so does not know how to use his skills. Am I correct?"

Iruka sighed and sat down saying "Exactly hokage-sama. I cannot teach him anything dangerous nor justify teaching him the same since he does not have the maturity or experience for such a thing. That is why his teammates and jounin sensei teach them that. They teach them based on their behaviour and mission experience. The only thing I can teach him now is taijutsu. And hand him the academy books you asked me to hand him telling him to learn everything in them fully."

Hiruzen said "Dont worry. I suggest you start getting him into the war-time academy books. Apart from that encourage him to read the jutsu theory book and work on his chakra control. I will also give you a script for him to be able to write. He needs to read and write it in the same manner and be able to write it extremely fast. So build up his writing speed. Once it is fast and accurate and an exact copy of the example given, I will take it from there in his studies. For his taijutsu, don't worry about it. I will get him introduced to the taijutsu expert. He will be able to help him learn a basic style and build up from there. Let him learn the ninjutsu in the academy book I gave him first. Once he is done with them, then we can start him on other jutsu but by then, his jounin sensei will step in and teach him. Apart from that, I will also speak to someone else and give him some shape manipulation exercises since he can start manipulating his chakra better to make his jutsu better. You work on his chakra control, academy skills, weapon skills and traps. Maybe even give him experience. Spar against him with him against your speciality. Your a trapper right. So make mock mission objectives and get him used to missions. It can help both of you right?"

Iruka nodded and said "So regarding the teams?"

Hiruzen asked "The problem with the teams is that Naruto is a front line guy and an extremely strong one at that from your estimation. So at the genin level, having him and sasuke in the same team would be a bad idea. Is that the extent of it?"

Iruka said "Yes hokage sama. But there is a little more. Naruto would be the team's anchor. He needs some long range and support shinobi and his team will become excellent. He would add more synergy to the group with hinata and shino as opposed to sakura and sasuke. They are not an all powerful group and they also do not have long range spying techniques thus unable to help him in any way. He cannot go all out with them there since they have similar skill sets whereas with shino and hinata he can develop their tracking skills as well as evasion, information gathering, medical and genjutsu skills while he does the ninjutsu and close range storming. It seems like a better team to have them as a tracking team."

Hiruzen looked pensive for a moment and asked almost absentmindedly "Do you have a list of jonin sensei available?". On seeing Iruka nod he continued "We both know the nine genin to keep an eye on this year as well as the three jonin sensei most likely to get them. How about you run your team formation by me and we will think it out before we do something else?"

Iruka nodded saying "Would you like my ideal teams hokage-sama or most likely teams ?"

Hiruzen asked "Assuming they are different, I would like both starting with ideal and with justification for both."

Iruka said "Ideally, I would like to keep shikamaru, Naruto and Ino in a team with kakashi as their jonin sensei. Shikamaru can use naruto's clones to extend his shadows thus making them deadlier, Ino can poison and interrogate them while Naruto can be their guardian and play it a lot better than choji. Kakashi is their backup. They are the team that can go behind enemy lines and cause mayhem or cause large amounts of mayhem on a battlefield considering the amount of clones naruto can make and how much shikamaru can use them. Intelligence, large scale battles, infiltration, this team can do all of it. It is a very good team. Two nin-tai-ken users, one long range user and one interrogation/poison specialist with both members having medic training. Makes for an excellent team.

Hiruzen said "Go on with the rest of the teams. I am interested in how you make them up."

Iruka said "The next team that I can think of is shino, sakura and kiba team under Asuma. This team is a combat team support team. They can track, drain and trap. Asuma is a ninjutsu kenjutsu user, shino is long range, sakura is medic/genjutsu with kiba being taijutsu with akamaru. They are a standard team that can do a lot of things. Kiba and shino are trackers, shino can covertly drain chakra, sakura can cover with mid range support and healing while Asuma and Kiba are their heavy hitters. The Inuzuka family techniques are made for heavy hitting just as the akimichi techniques. They are a well rounded team which can fit in a lot of scenarios. The perfect standard response team. The only reason they will be overshadowed is that almost everything that they can do, kakashi's team can do better. But that does not change the fact that this team is an excellent all round team which is not lacking in any aspect except for possibly interrogation. But at the same time, kakashi's team is lacking in tracking which this team has in spades. They can be a hunter department team eventually with the tracking and capture alive capabilities."

Hiruzen nodded Iruka to continue and he did saying "The final team is choji, Sasuke, hinata and kurenai. This team is a get behind enemy lines team. Hinata is a byakugan user. She has excellent taijutsu and excellent control making her a perfect candidate for a medic nin. Especially since the byakugan can to a certain extent replace the diagnostic jutsu. The second aspect is the long range spying of the byakugan, it can read into enemy locations and decide how to storm a place, what routes to avoid, what would be the better routes in enemy territory etc. This makes her a very good spy. Sasuke is their all-rounder. He can finish opponents quickly and silently. With the sharingan this also gives him a lot of opportunities to learn about enemy capabilities and techniques. Him with kenjutsu and ninjutsu is a very good option. The final aspect is choji who can bail them if things go wrong. Choji is the ultimate tank. He has the strongest hitting force among all the students, naruto included at present. He can also take a lot of damage. Add in some earth manipulation and earth style armour as well as a mace or a club and he becomes a terror while covering the escape. He can make himself a siege engine if he has to while they infiltrate. This makes him a very effective member. He can also cover while they are trying to escape and cause mayhem while the other two pick people off one by one. Kurenai is their cover. In enemy territory, she can guard them, hide them, teach them to hide themselves using chakra control, stealth, genjutsu etc. Can teach them deception and how to strategize since that is a required skill set for genjutsu users. Apart from that, she can tell them how to win fights without too much mayhem which is a very important aspect that will help them."

Hiruzen said "This is a very interesting idea Iruka, but the team under Asuma does not convince me much so I will be keeping the Ino-Shika-Cho team. This is also because the adults in the Ino-Shika-Cho team have been training their kids as teammates from a long time. So that team does not change. But then your ideal team would replace kurenai and kiba with naruto and kakashi right? Making the two teams Sakura, Sasuke Kiba Kurenai, and Naruto, Shino, Hinata, Kakashi. And your reasoning works soundly even for this team to a certain extent, a medic/genjutsu candidate in sakura for kurenai, a sasuke sharingan genjutsu candidate for sasuke while being their mid-range fighter and a tracker in the form of kiba for the infiltrating enemy lines. The idea for Naruto's team also is excellent. The only problem I feel with this is that they make a better tracking and all out combat team in the older teams. I understand that that makes kakashi's team extremely overpowered due to having both naruto and sasuke and that sakura will suffer but the team itself will be very good. Don't you agree kakashi?"

Iruka turned around suddenly and saw Kakashi Kurenai and Asuma sitting in the hokage's room with Gai leaning against the wall. Asuma was smoking a cigarette while kurenai was looking a little annoyed at kakashi reading porn and asuma smoking near her. Gai was just being a silent observer since his team was already there and the rest of the jonin sensei were called around ten minutes later but these four were called now.

Kakashi without looking up from his book said "I agree hokage-sama. They make more sense as a front-line team even if they are a little more powerful than normal. I will beat the fangirl out of sakura if required. The others should be a fine team."

Iruka said "I don't disagree with the team on the team skills. I disagree because of their psych profiles as well. Sakura is a fan girl of the largest order and has a very low opinion of naruto. She will not give his opinion a single thought before following what sasuke says blindly. Sasuke on the other hand has a superiority complex and an inferiority complex along with strong deserter tendencies. He believes because he is an uchiha he is stronger than everyone, while at the same time he is very touchy about any perceived weakness berating himself as hopeless which further drives him mad. Apart from that, his motive for revenge against itachi is very strong and he is more attached to that than he is to konoha. Him and naruto on a single team is a disaster since naruto grew from nothing to being able to beat sasuke and sakura in a two on one as they will be one week later. This will not settle well with him. Sakura will berate Naruto for beating sasuke and sasuke will constantly hound him to learn how he got better and that he should give sasuke his training techniques as well as jutsu. They are smart in some ways but extremely dumb in some ways hokage-sama."

Kakashi looked up from his book with the same face but those who knew him could see a spark of interest behind his lone open eye. This was quickly corrected when he eye-smiled saying "I was under the impression that naruto was not very good from the academy files. Are you saying that is changed Iruka-san?"

Iruka nodded saying "If you are going to have a pure taijutsu fight or a pure ninjutsu fight then I agree that naruto is very weak. We tested like that in the academy. But when it comes to using everything you have to complete the mission kind of scenario, then naruto becomes a very strong ninja. Almost chunin level. And that will cause issues since what he does know, he knows very well. His taijutsu also will become somewhat proficient by the end of next week."

Kakashi looked at hiruzen who was watching this byplay with a smile on his face and asked "And how is his training progressing so quickly? The files say he was dumb. I have personally seen him street smart but surely that would show in the academics to a certain extent?"

Iruka said "He is not dumb. He is just too energetic to sit and learn from a book. He can do that now because he is utilizing his energy more efficiently. His bouts of hyperactivity have reduced. With regards to how he is training so quickly, the kagebushin jutsu makes for a very effective training tool. It is risky but with his healing factor he should be fine."

Gai interrupted "Yosh, Iruka-san, you mentioned that your youthful student has a healing factor. Could you please elaborate ?"

Iruka said "He has a very good healing factor. I have assigned him to weights for the past one week and he gets used to and increases his assigned weights each day. As of right now he has 240 kgs on him. He increases his weights by 40 kgs everyday and physically exercises a lot to get used to it. He trained without his weights today to get used to them."

Gai said "His flames of youth seem to be burning. But surely you are exaggerating my youthful friend? He cannot possibly be upping his weight by 40kgs every day and getting used to it?" He looked to Iruka with a slight despairing look and on seeing Iruka shake his head he instantly said "Hokage-sama, I request to be able to train this youthful student. His flames of youth burn brightly. He can become one of the better ninja in the village in taijutsu and kenjutsu if this is the case based on physical abilities alone.

Kakashi said "Ma ma, he is my student as of right now. I do not think you should start laying claim already Gai."

Hiruzen just looked at them puffing his pipe as if in deep thought. Then he said "While I understand to a certain extent where Iruka is coming from but I believe the teams should stay the same. So Asuma you get the Ino-Shika-Cho trio. Kurenai you get Hyuuga-Inuzuka-Aburame for the tracker team you requested. You may leave and come back later with the other jonin for general instructions."

The two nodded at him and left saying "Hai Hokage-sama."

Hiruzen looked at Iruka saying "Your concerns are justified Iruka, I will not disagree but these teams have a much better capability at higher level combat. That is why these teams are chosen. Anyway, Kakashi, I am aware you know the rasengan as well as the training steps for the same. Please meet naruto tomorrow and show him the first and second steps. He needs to train his shape manipulation and his chakra control is pretty decent. Don't tell him it's a jutsu. Tell him it's huge shape manipulation training and that this would get his external shape manipulation to much greater levels. I will take care of the internal ones. Meet him at the academy with Iruka there at 8. Do not be late. Tell him that once he can do both single handedly and in both hands in under a second, he can come meet me for the third step. I will call you for the same."

Kakashi nodded a little pleased saying "Thank you Hokage-sama. I will do so."

Hiruzen looked to Gai saying "It's a good thing you came Gai. I was actually going to call you anyway. Iruka-kun came to me saying that he cannot teach naruto anything dangerous without asserting that his mentality and maturity was on the right track. He has taught him almost everything that he can without teaching him anything dangerous. The only thing he did not teach him is taijutsu and even then, it is because the academy style doesn't suit him. Evaluate him and make suggestions to his physical training as well as taijutsu. I am aware that you have your own team to train so send him a kage-bunshin. You dont need to be with him the whole time. Just a little to set him on the right track w.r.t physical training and the basics of a taijutsu style that you think will fit him. Then meet with him once a week or two at the minimum as per your freedom to help him. Once he has a good basic grasp over the taijutsu style and physical training, then it is up to your interest whether to continue or not. Meet him like kakashi is at 8 tomorrow morning at the academy. Iruka-kun will introduce you to him. Is that clear?"

Gai nodded giving a good guy symbol saying "We will fan our flames of youth to make them infernos hokage-sama."

Hiruzen just nodded at him and then turned to Iruka saying "Start him on the academy books I gave you as well as the rest of the chakra control. Also, by tomorrow morning, I will send you the scroll that naruto has to be able to read and write properly where the writing should be an exact copy of the way things were written on the scroll. Have him practice that as well. The jutsu theory book would help him greatly in his shape manipulation. Tell him to read that and practice on it as well. Apart from that, spar with him consistently. Make mock missions and evaluate him. Limit his number of clones if required. I want to know how he thinks and to be able to predict his reactions if required. Is that clear?"

Iruka nodded saying "I will do as you say hokage-sama."

Hiruzen nodded at the door saying "You can leave now Iruka-kun. These two will come meet you and little naruto at 8 sharp in the academy tomorrow morning. Good night."

Iruka bowed wishing hiruzen a good night and walked out. He hoped that this would not be a bad thing. In his opinion, unless sasuke and sakura changed their behaviour a lot and naruto changed his behaviour a little, considering that it had already changed a lot from how he was a week back, there would be huge problems on that team. Well, they know what is best in the long term. Might as well trust them, saying this, Iruka went to bed hoping for a better day the next day.


	5. Chapter 5: Genin Teams

**Forge your path**

 **Disclaimer : I do not own Naruto.**

 **Chapter 5: Genin teams**

It was two weeks since he had graduated using the kage-bunshin jutsu and capturing Mizuki-sensei. He did not have any idea what happened to him, he knew that the T&I department of the village and the village obviously had one since it was a military village at the end of the day had him. He did not know anything about Mizuki's fate.

But this did not concern him right now. It was two weeks since he actually got trained. Two weeks since he started training. Two weeks that seemed so long. Two weeks that taught him a lot of things with the first being that information and what one does with that information is the most important aspect of being a shinobi. The second is that despite being ranked in terms of genin, chunin and jonin, that is in no way an indication of strength levels. Speciality comes into play and makes it difficult to categorize. As seen by his spars with Iruka. Unless he went into kage-bunshin abuse, he could not keep up with Iruka in trapping.

The third is that deception is key. With his growing senses, he is able to figure out that he is almost always under watch. Even in the academy there is someone always watching him. He does not know why that is happening but no one has harmed him yet and he is taking that as a good sign. But that doesn't change the fact that he is not able to hide his skills. He knows that a lot of people in the village hate him and he knows that he needs to have some skills that he can use to hide. It's because of this, that he sent a lot of clones to one of the very secluded training grounds, even beyond training ground 44 which everyone seems to avoid and trained there. He noticed that no one came there and he decided to train there in peace.

The fourth is that chakra control is very important. He never woke up feeling so calm. He initially attributed it to using up energy but then later in the day also, he felt very normal despite having a lot of chakra. Then slowly on testing why this was the case, he realised that chakra control is key and meditation is the winner. A better control over his chakra left him calmer, while meditation blew that scale out of the window. For someone who was extremely hyperactive, the fact that the thing he enjoys the most is meditation is something that people cannot believe but the flow of chakra through his body is something that manages to calm him down every time.

The fifth is that academics was easy. He was blowing past the books that Jiji gave. Maybe because he knew a lot of the stuff or that the rest of the stuff was so obvious that it was a simple logical extension of what he had already read but he was blowing past the academic stuff. He was paying extra attention to survival skills since it had a lot of techniques for travel, stealth skills since it also had a few techniques for stealth, ninjutsu since it gave introductory techniques to all five elements that was also there in jutsu theory but still and poisons and medicine. He had told Iruka that he was also looking through the taijutsu books to get used to it as an afterthought since if he wanted to be a taijutsu monster he needed speed, strength and knowledge.

He blew through the history, math, science, language, etiquette and strategy sessions of the academy books, even the old ones. It was easy. Iruka was even more surprised that he did that. But Iruka was somewhat happy. Happy since he had finished most of the work that Iruka thought would take the longest while sad because now he would have to spar against Naruto more often since he did not have much academic work to do. The only academic work that he had was the writing that he was given. He had to make an exact copy of it in under a second. This was interesting because he was told that it would be a necessity and a precursor to fuinjutsu.

The interesting things were the new people that he had met.

FLASHBACK *

He was going to the academy after absorbing all the memories of the clones that stayed up the previous night. They were working on the leaf sticking and running water walking simultaneously as well as rapid walking. He had made progress in both. He could not understand why he was not able to release small amounts of chakra since that removed a whole lot of capabilities that he could potentially have but he still said that he would master chakra control as much as he could.

He made it to the academy with five minutes to spare when he found Iruka talking to two people. One was wearing the konoha standard jounin uniform with his distinguishing feature being spiky silver hair and a mask on his face. The other was having a bowl cut and a green spandex with orange legwarmers. They were talking to Iruka.

As he went near them he heard Iruka say " ….. justs to the weights at ridiculous speeds Gai-san. He adjusts to 40kgs everyday. Shinobi are supposed to get use to weights faster being able to increase around 300 kgs a month if they focus on nothing else but this is just ridiculous since he does that in eight days without deterioration in speed. Wait here he is."

Turning to him Iruka says "Morning Naruto."

He waved at Iruka in an excited manner saying "Morning Iruka sensei. You still not over the fact that I can adjust to the weights faster than you can eh. Sad luck Iruka sensei. I told you I'm awesome. Now who are these people?" Saying this, he looked at the two.

The bowl cut man immediately screamed "I am Maito Gai the green beast of Konoha. I am going to help you increase your flames of youth." Saying this he got into a good guy pose while his teeth sparkled. Naruto had a sweatdrop while thinking " _Man, he is weird. Hope I don't get that weirdness as well._ ". He turned to the other person waiting for him to say something when the spiky haired guy turned to Gai saying "Hmmm…. You say something Gai?". Seeing Gai faceplant and mumble something about hip and cool attitude, spiky then turned to naruto saying "I am kakashi. I was asked to check your chakra control and begin a different type of chakra exercise for you. If we can begin, I can get back to work soon."

Naruto instantly nodded saying "I am ready now kakashi-san. Gai san, I hope you don't mind but I would like to hear what he says before Kakashi-san has to go away. Is that alright?"

On seeing Gai nod Naruto continued "So, Kakashi san. Can you explain what kind of chakra exercise and how different? Is it like the chakra control that we are doing normally or is it something completely different?"

Kakashi said "There are different types of chakra control kid. Now I am trusting Iruka who said that you were done with water walking as well as kunai balancing?" On seeing Naruto nod he continued saying "Good. The thing with chakra exercises is that there are three types that I know of. The first is the control of chakra internal to the body. This just is a control on how to regulate chakra, controlling how much chakra is released and where it is released from. This is good since this is the basis for all jutsu, since the handseals in most of the cases take care of the rest of the chakra exercises, but that is very inefficient and to progress with chakra and using it, one needs to do two more kinds of exercises that I know of. The first is shape manipulation which is controlling chakra within you to build different shapes as well as controlling chakra outside you to certain shapes to attain certain effects. The second is elemental manipulation. This is creating and controlling elemental chakra. These two exercises have to be performed differently again no matter how much control you have over normal chakra."

Naruto nodded and excitedly started asking "How does one know what element to use? Can someone convert his chakra to whichever element he likes? How many elements can one use at a maximum if not every element? Is there some sort of a preference? What does .."

Kakashi interrupted him saying "One can use jutsu from every element. People have natural affinities to certain elements which are developed at birth or based on using jutsus of a certain element a lot. The conversion to elements have exercises. With enough training one can convert to all the elements. I myself being a ninjutsu expert can convert to three elements easily and can use jutsu from all five elements. I am in the process of learning my fourth element. But that is not why we are here. Elemental manipulation is a jonin level skill and will take time to master."

Naruto stopped and asked "So to develop affinities I have to use jutsu from that element a lot right? That is good to know. I assume then that we are here for shape manipulation?"

Kakashi nodded saying "While you should learn to control your chakra at the lower levels better, yes, we are here for shape manipulation. I am giving you one of the toughest shape manipulation exercises that I know of. If you succeed at this, then shape manipulation should be very easy for you. It is in three parts. Observe carefully."

Saying this Kakashi took out a balloon filled with some liquid and put it on his hand. He then applied some chakra and it burst after getting some ridges. Kakashi said "The idea is to pop the balloon filled with water using only your chakra. It should not be a hole, it should burst in the exact same manner that I showed you. Also you should be able to do it with both hands i.e a balloon in each hand bursting. If you are doing it, then you should be able to do it as fast as possible. A good speed would be under one second. Did you understand?"

Naruto nodded saying "You rotated the chakra didn't you?"

Kakashi while internally surprised didn't change his expression and said "Explain your reasoning."

Naruto said "There were ridges formed on the balloon. I also heard some swishing noise which comes with rotation of some kind. You also said that it should burst, not get a hole, so popping with chakra in the form of a lance or a sharp object is out. All of this implies that we need to fill the space and force it to expand in all directions simultaneously causing it to burst. The ideal way to do it is to create a sphere and then force it to expand but that does not explain the swishing, thus I figured rotation. Am I right?"

Gai and Iruka looked shocked at the explanation while Kakashi was internally cursing a lot of people for calling this kid dumb. He and jiraiya both considered prodigious could not figure out the exercise without a lot of trial and error despite seeing and hearing the same things while this kid figured it out in the first go. Without even beginning the exercise. This is ridiculous. He would need to talk to the hokage and get them to re-check the whole of the academy results at this rate because calling this kid dumb is like calling the shodaime or the sandaime weak. Things they were most certainly not.

He said "Yup, you got it right. As for the explanation you gave, the end result of all these exercises is the sphere. We are trying to build that sphere but it is insanely hard to do." Saying this he showed him the rasengan saying "This is what we are aiming together. It is a hard jutsu to do but is very strong. Let me show you."

Saying this he walked towards a tree and said "Observe carefully. You build up a rasengan." He built one up in his hand. "And then push. It grinds away at what it touches." He slowly pushed at a tree trunk. He did not use much force but it still ate away at the tree without much effort. He continued the explanation saying "At the end of the three exercises, you should be able to do this. But it is insanely difficult to do. It took me a year to learn it and I am considered a prodigy and a ninjutsu master by most people. So we build it up slowly."

Saying this, he walked back to where they were at the starting saying "So any insight on that?"

Naruto nodded saying "It was not pushing, it was eating away at the wood bit by bit, with flakes flying in the side. It looked like a drill but an extremely dull one. I imagine that the sphere is rotating and it is that rotation that is eating away at the tree. Also, the fact that the sphere did not disintegrate is surprising since in my experience limited as it is, chakra dissipated very fast. So the chakra must be very dense and need constant input of more chakra or has a shield that does not let chakra go but it still needs input in the form of rotation since the tree will attempt to slow down the rotation. That is all I can make of it."

And Kakashi decided that he was killing some people. Either the academy had huge expectations and naruto was really dumb when compared to the rest of the students in his class which was most probably not the case, or the academy teachers were biased and wrote him off. Kakashi decided that the first thing he was going to do was get this news to hokage-sama.

Kakashi said "I mostly won't be available this week. And I have been told about your impressive learning speed from Iruka-san. So against my better judgement, I will show you all three exercises. Even if you are abusing kage-bunshin, make sure you do them serially since it will not help you learn the jutsu otherwise. Is that clear?"

On seeing naruto nod, he said "You have already seen the first part of the exercise. The second part of the exercise is the same but only using a rubber ball filled with air. The rubber is harder and the lack of water teaches you to increase your chakra. The third and final aspect is bringing it together. Being able to sustain it with a coating as you mentioned. To train this, you will sustain the rotation that you figured out in an air balloon. It should completely fill the air balloon but not burst it. All three things, the water balloon, the rubber ball and the air balloon should be of same size. That will make it easier for you to learn it. Also, if you learn any of these exercises before I see you next, a good time to consider mastery of each exercise would be finishing each exercise in both hands simultaneously in under a second. Also for any clones you make, ensure that they have at least as much chakra as four kage-bunshin. This jutsu is chakra intensive and difficult. Any questions?"

Naruto looked thoughtful and then asked "If I am done, how should I find you?"

Kakashi said "It's not that easy kid. I graduated at 5 and was chunin at six, all the while being a ninjutsu expert and it still took me a year to get it. If you somehow do manage to learn even one of the three exercises, you can ask for me by visiting hokage-sama, or ask him himself and he will either help you with the exercises or direct you to me. Is that all?"

Naruto nodded and bowed saying "That is all kakashi-san. Thank you."

Kakashi said "Ja ne." and vanished in a puff of smoke leaving a hundred balloons.

Naruto instantly picked up one balloon filled with water and then made four hundred clones instead of the 1700 he made the previous day. They each had a balloon in their hand and he said "Well, you know what to do. Get to it. Everyone try your right hand first. Once we figure out the method to burst it in one hand, replicating it in the second should not be so hard." Everyone nodded and vanished.

Naruto then turned to Gai and Iruka saying "Sorry Gai-san, Iruka sensei. I got carried away. He said it was chakra intensive so I figured less clones with more chakra will be better."

Iruka asked "How much chakra did you use?"

Naruto said "I split the chakra I normally use to create clones for our morning training into those 400 clones. While I usually use only a tenth, this exercise is interesting and kakashi san challenged me, so I will be using a lot more chakra this week. I hope you don't mind Iruka sensei."

Iruka just nodded. Naruto then turned to Gai and asked "So Gai sensei, what should I do. You are helping me with my taijutsu I assume since that is the only thing left from academy training?"

Gai nodded saying "I will be evaluating your physical skills, your exercising mechanisms and your taijutsu. I have also been told you wear weights and adjust to them really fast and that you are currently wearing 240 kgs?"

Naruto said "I upped it to 280 kgs before coming Gai sensei. I am still not used to 280 but yea, I am used to 240."

Gai nodded saying "Good, then first, we will evaluate your physical skills with the weights then without, and then I will help you find a taijutsu style that might help as well as more efficient physical training to better yourself. The academy training is good and all but it is for kids at the end of the day, not people already used to it. They need to push themselves more. Lower your weights and we shall begin.".

Gai was serious throughout the whole discussion. He was Kakashi's rival and closest friend alive. He was also on his team in ANBU. He could read Kakashi very well and something about this boy had impressed Kakashi very greatly. The insights were surprising but in hindsight were somewhat obvious. So he was very eager to find out what about this boy had impressed Kakashi. Also if what Iruka said was true, then he could very well have a taijutsu monster in his hands. If his speed and strength improved at the rate Iruka said it does, then the kid would only have to wait two odd years before he caught up with Gai in the weights department and Gai was in his upper twenties. That meant with the right training, this kid could surpass Gai at an earlier age and Gai would evaluate whether this kid was good enough for that.

What followed was the most gruelling session that Naruto had ever faced. Iruka could not complete it. Naruto barely completed it with his weights on. He ached all over. Gai on the other hand was impressed. He had purposefully given an extremely tough session thinking that he would figure out the kid's stamina and speed and strength based on when the kid dropped out of each exercise. He did not expect Naruto to complete it. The fact that it ached him all over was expected but not that he completed the training exercise from hell.

Naruto begged "Gai-san. My body's aching all over. Give me half an hour to rest before we begin the next set without any weights on?"

Gai still surprised nodded saying "Take a break for twenty minutes. I would suggest you warm up in any way you know in the last ten minutes to get used to moving without your weights."

Naruto nodded thanks saying "Thank you Gai-san. I have not yet got off the weights since I have put them on. This will be the first time that I am training without them on. I will take your advice."

Half an hour later, the second session from hell began. This time, Naruto did not have weights slowing him down and causing pain, but he also was already sore from the exercise he had performed. He still finished it slightly faster than the first time, but not by much and it ached even more all over. He tripped many times while running and other exercises because he was not yet used to moving his body in a particular manner.

Gai certainly did not expect Naruto to be able to do the series of exercises twice. That was very difficult and it was something that Lee had to build up to and Lee still could not do it completely. Sure Lee could do it without weights but Lee still could not do it with his full weights on. The fact that the kid could, even if his weights were smaller than Lee was surprising since his body also was not as developed.

Gai said "Naruto-kun, tell me honestly. How many more repetitions of this series of exercises can you do?"

Naruto said "I am not sure Gai-san, but given fifteen minutes of rest between them and without weights, I can definitely do it twice more and probably thrice more. After that, I cannot say."

Gai nodded saying "Ok. Now I have noticed that you have flexibility issues and speed issues. Also you are not very comfortable in fighting without weights. You have a unique ability kid. You can become very comfortable with your body without changing it too much."

Naruto looked confused asking "What do you mean Gai-san?"

Gai said "Your kage-bunshin give you back muscle memory is what I was told. You can do a huge variety of exercises using your kage-bunshins and get used to them. This way you have greater awareness of your body without modifying it since you have no physically done the exercise thus have not built any muscle. That can give you a lot of grace. I will give you a series of exercises to do for your kage-bunshin. The series that we did till now is what you are going to be doing with your weights on everyday from now on. Also, at the end of every day, you kage-bunshin will fight taijutsu only with both the weights on and the weights off. This will help you become accustomed to fighting without the weights. Also, I will collect a copy of the taijutsu style I want you to learn from the library and give it to Iruka-san by today afternoon. There are images so it should not be too hard to do the katas. I can supervise once a week. Learn them and spar with the style to get better used to it. Now memorise these stretches and exercises for your kage-bunshin."

Saying this Gai ran through a whole lot of exercises for his kage-bunshin and then went away. He returned to give a scroll to Iruka who passed it on to Naruto and then went back to whatever he was doing saying he will tell the hokage to ask Naruto to meet him next when he was free. He also offered Naruto a spot on his morning physical training with Lee at four in the morning which Naruto gladly accepted. And life went on."

END FLASHBACK **

And Naruto worked. He met Gai and Lee who was like a mini-Gai every morning. He also progressed at his taijutsu quickly. His clones were constantly sparring and he was also sparring with Lee to get used to using that Taijutsu with his physical body. Some things he had to do himself like punching and kicking a log so many times to develop the strength in his hands. It was like a form of physical training. But the rest of the stuff which was more form dependant was handled by the clones.

The best part was that he finally started making more clones. He used up to half his chakra to make clones to practice the jutsu that he had been given. He was using the normal academy clones that he usually assigned to the Iruka for academy studies and learning and mastering the techniques in the academy book. He had chakra control clones that were trying to better his control and meditate to help him keep calm. He had clones attempting to modify and master kawarimi, henge and shunshin to their desired levels, he had clones to learn his taijutsu and flexibility and the last set of clones to help with fuinjutsu and the jutsu theory book exercises. These took about one fifth of his chakra. The rest went into mastering the exercises that Kakashi-san had showed.

He had finished mastering the balloon popping exercise to Kakashi's standards of mastering it. He had also finished the rubber ball popping exercise and was working on mastering it to Kakashi's standards. He could probably finish that by today night or by tomorrow morning if he sent out clones to train all night like he usually did. He continued training all night in all things except for Taijutsu, since it was dark and seeing forms was difficult so one could learn wrong, the academy studies since he could not read and write, he could only practice the techniques they taught and finally handwriting since he could not see what he was writing.

He freshened up, made his clones to do the exercises he had to and then went to the academy. In the academy in the class everyone went silent at seeing him. Everyone was wondering why he was here.

Kiba loudly asked him "Hey Dead-last, why are you here? This is for graduates only. Also, how come the change in clothes? What happened to orange is awesome eh? Finally had some sense beaten into you by someone?"

Naruto replied "Shut up mutt. I passed. Got field promoted and was given a headband that I am wearing as you would be able to realise if your brain processed what your eyes say before your mouth started barking. I think I was right when I figured Akamaru was the smarter of the two of you. And don't diss the orange dogboy. It is better than stinking like wet dog all the time." Saying this, he poked he tongue out at kiba and went to the last row near shikamaru. He started meditating near shikamaru. He then lost all contact with the outside world till someone patted him on the head. Well they tried to. He caught their hand before they could and almost twisted it.

On opening his eyes and seeing Iruka there he let go of Iruka's hand and said "Hey, Iruka sensei. Couldn't you wake me up normally? I almost twisted your hand."

Iruka said "I tried Naruto, but you didn't listen. Good reflexes but I was moving very slowly. Be more aware of your surroundings. It is good to meditate but extremely bad to not be aware of your surroundings at all times."

Naruto nodded saying "Will do Iruka sensei."

Iruka got back to a silent class which was watching this exchange with interested or surprised eyes. Shikamaru had narrowed his eyes in thought, Sakura and Ino were making dreamy eyes at Sasuke while still giving him surprised looks and Sasuke looked at him and then dismissed him. Kiba just looked on eagerly at Iruka sensei waiting to announce the teams. He shouted "Come on Iruka sensei. Don't keep us hanging. Tell us our teams fast."

Iruka sighed saying "Kiba-kun, don't be in a hurry. You are graduating now and entering the ninja forces, meaning that you are now part of the military of this village. You should behave appropriately. Also remember and never forget. Konoha teams are built on teamwork. We work better together and take down stronger opponents in the same manner. Everyone protects everyone. Is that clear?" Seeing people nod impatiently he says "That is all. Congratulations on graduating. The teams are as follows. Team one is …."

Naruto paid attention till his name came up. He heard Iruka saying " … Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha. You will form team-7 and your sensei will be Hatake Kakashi.". Sakura instantly squealed loudly saying "Yes, see Ino, true love conquers all." while Ino wailed.

Iruka shouted at her regarding behaviour and calm in the class and continued on with the teams being kiba, hinata and shino being eight while shika,ino and choji were team 10. The teams went on till 12. Once Iruka was done Naruto raised his hands. Seeing Iruka nod he loudly said "Iruka sensei, why do I have to be on this team? It is the worst possible team when one considers teamwork. I am sure that replacing myself with choji or Kiba will lead to better teams."

Iruka said "One, you were the deadlast, thus paired with the rookie of the year and kunoichi of the year, and secondly the teams were decided by the hokage and the jonin sensei with my input. If you want a change in teams you should talk to hokage-sama. Although to the best of my knowledge the teams have never been changed unless someone died or graduated from the team. And even then many teams have remained the same. So you will have to stay on this team Naruto."

Naruto sighed and nodded. Iruka looked at him and seeing he was done looked at the class in general saying "Your senseis will be here after one hour. You can have your lunch till then. Have a nice day."

Saying this, Iruka walked out of the academy. Naruto got up and walked to Sasuke saying "Sasuke teme, neither of us like each other for whatever reasons. But we are a team. So we have to work together. Lets at least get to know each other and the third team member by having lunch together?"

Sasuke said "Piss off dobe. Don't waste my time." Saying this, he walked away.

Naruto turned to Sakura saying "Would you at least have lunch with me?"

Sakura shouted at him saying "Naruto baka, I will not date you. Get lost." Saying this, she ran after Sasuke. Seeing her and a majority of the fangirls running after Sasuke including Ino, Naruto went and joined Shikamaru and Choji for lunch saying "Yo guys, mind if I join?"

Choji said "Nope, sit down." while crunching on his chips.

Naruto sat next to where Shikamaru was sitting and taking out his lunch which was parcelled Ichiraku said "Well, looks like we graduated. Shikamaru, you should stop being so lazy. Or at least lie down on top of water. That will ensure you are training while lazing around."

Both Shikamaru and Choji looked surprised and suspicious while Shikamaru said "Troublesome Naruto. Dont pull my leg. It's too early in the day to put up with you. Explain the lieing on water part."

Naruto said "It's a chakra control exercise. It helps chakra control and developing chakra reserves. So you can lie down on the water looking at the clouds while holding and moving various things using your shadow. I have read that your clan works with shadows. I don't know how but you are smart. You can figure something out. And it's noon shika. It's not early."

Shikamaru said "Exactly Naruto. It's only noon. And how do you know the exercise? Also since when did you start reading?"

Naruto said "I learnt it and two weeks ago. I finally got access to the library. Learn it. It will help a lot and the faster you get to it, the more you can laze around. It is also a perfect excuse since mastering it is to be able to stand on the water for an hour and a half on different kinds of water like still, running, rapids etc. So you can lie down for long periods of time with a perfect excuse."

Shikamaru smirked and lazily drawled "This might be the start of a very beautiful friendship. You are not that bad Naruto. So long as you don't prank me too badly, we can hang around. Especially doing what you suggested. Any tips for Choji?"

Naruto said "Well, nothing prevents him from doing the same thing as you since chakra control is important for everyone. Apart from that, he is a little fat."

Shikamaru could not react in time to stop Naruto from saying this and Choji instantly shouted angrily saying "I am not fat, I am big boned. Do not call me fat or I will hurt you."

Naruto said "Choji, I do not mean to insult you. I am also not teasing you. I am calling it as I see it. You are fat. That is not a bad thing necessarily. I heard that your clan has some size changing jutsu and considering that everyone in your clan is fat, it might be something to do with your clan jutsu. But nothing prevents you from building some muscle on top of it."

Choji was seething but after hearing Naruto explain himself he calmed down a little. He was still angry though and said "What do you suggest Naruto? And do not call me fat."

Naruto said "I will not call you any derogatory nicknames of being fat Choji if that is what you are worried about. But the fact that you fly into a rage when someone calls you fat is a bad thing. Also I would suggest strength and speed building exercises. I do not know how your clan jutsu works but the way it is, you have the biggest bulk amongst all of us. Build on that to change it to the greatest strength and stamina amongst all of us even if not speed. Physical skills seem to be your niche so work on it. A weapon like a spiked mace or club also seems like an excellent idea. I don't know though. It all depends on your clan jutsu and how you want to grow. These are the ideas I had at the top of my head for you."

Shikamaru asked "Why did you have these ideas for both of us in the first place?"

Naruto slurped his mouthful of noodles and said "You know how I graduated right? And then started reading?" On seeing Shikamaru nod while eating a rice cake, he continued "I read that teamwork made Konoha as strong as it is, that along with some prodigies but the prodigies survived and became so strong because of teamwork. Their insane skills were developed because of the same. Also, considering that everyone who graduated is put on a team, even those field promoted I knew that I would be put on a team. I did not know whom with though, so I had to make ideas like this for everyone in our graduating class that I knew anything about."

Naruto shrugged and continued eating his noodles thus missing Shikamaru's surprised and thoughtful glance. The ideas seemed good and seemed aimed at making them stronger and train while still giving them their relaxation. It showed a surprising level of thought.

Naruto finished his noodles and said "Anyway, I am done. I will start meditating. Wake me up when it's time to leave if I am not done by then. Also, use a stick because I am not sure I can resist twisting whatever you tried to wake me up with and I don't want to hurt you."

Saying this, Naruto went into his meditation waiting for the academy bell to ring. He had gotten used to his clones dispelling over time and thus did not react too much to them dispelling over the course of the day. Life went on for him and he hoped to finish most of the stuff he was tasked with mastering. He decided not to learn anything too advanced unless he was completely sure he had a thorough mastery over the basics. Then and only then would he move on to more advanced stuff. Thus a thorough mastery over all the stuff taught in the old war-time academy books including their stealth, information gathering, survival , travelling and ninjutsu techniques before he moved on to anything else. He spent the time in blissful calm following the chakra in konoha in people while waiting for lunch to end.


	6. Chapter 6: Genin test

**Forge your path**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto**

 **Chapter 6: The genin test and results**

The bell rang and after being woken up by a wary Shikamaru, courtesy of a broken stick near where they were sitting, he made his way back to the classroom. Sensei came and went, a wavy dark haired red eyed female in bandages came to take Team 8 away while a bearded smoke heavy huge man with a nose like jiji came to take away Team 10. It remained with only them being in the classroom after ten minutes of the assigned time that the sensei's were supposed to come pick them up. Naruto did not know what to do so he asked "Hey you two, are you interested in making some sort of conversation while waiting for sensei to come?"

Sasuke said "Hn, not likely dobe." and turned away with sakura fawning over what sasuke said without paying much attention to what naruto said.

Naruto nodded his head expecting it and went about his exercises. He had increased his weights again and missed one repetition while waiting in class for the teams to be announced. While he could not run in class, he could do all the other exercises. So to the amazement of the two watching teammates, he went though all of the exercises once and took a break. Keep in mind that this was the training from hell that Gai had given and they were suitably impressed by the amount of work he had done.

Sasuke asked "Dobe, who told you about those training exercises?"

Naruto said "I was a little slow so I asked around and was told to do these exercises by one of the jonin. They are apparently beginner level and help set a good base body."

Sasuke asked "And how are they better than the academy ones?"

Naruto said "These are the ones that all ninja need to do since it exercises all their muscles. The academy ones are beginner basic stretches to get one used to the idea of exercise. The exercises that I did is usually compounded with running but since I cannot leave the classroom, I did not do the running. If they start getting easy, increase the number of reps is what I was told."

Sasuke grunted and turned away. Naruto said "You know teme, for answering a question, a polite thanks would have sufficed. I guess the Uchiha were not very polite if you are the only example. Either that, or you are the bad egg. Whichever man."

Sasuke was livid that the dobe would insult him or his family like that but before he could say anything Sakura said "Naruto baka, don't talk to sasuke-kun like that."

Naruto said "I apologize if I hurt you but your behaviour was demanding it. I was polite. Even if we don't like each other, I expect politeness in return. And despite your favoured upbringing you are not which makes me wonder why. Prove me wrong and be polite then because the way you are currently glaring at me instead of apologizing for your mistake and telling me it won't happen again piles more evidence that I am right Teme."

Sasuke just growled and looked away. Sakura was fuming and alternating between glaring at Naruto and making uncertain faces at Sasuke. Naruto looked at the two of them and finishing his rest, got back into his exercises. He finished his set, rested and finished one more set by the time Kakashi came.

The sliding of the door was the first indication that someone came. By the time this happened the three of them were bored but after that first attempt at talking no one said anything. Kakashi poked his head into the door to find the three of them doing three different things. Naruto was almost done with a series of exercises that he recognised as Gai's, Sasuke was glaring at the wall and Sakura was silently gazing towards Sasuke with adoration in her eyes.

Kakashi took one look at them and said "My first impression of you is … you'll are boring. Meet me on the roof in five minutes."

Saying this, kakashi vanished in a puff. Sasuke went up to the roof while Sakura followed along. Naruto continued with his exercises and finished in around 3 minutes. Waiting for one more minute, he walked up the side of the academy building to the roof reaching there exactly on the fifth minute to see Sasuke and Sakura seated while Kakashi was leaning against the railing. He walked up to where Sakura and Sasuke were seated and sat down beside them.

Kakashi shut his book and said "Now that all of us are here, how about we introduce ourselves?"

Sakura asked "How do we do that sensei?"

Kakashi said "A simple method we use here is name, likes, dislikes, hobbies and dream."

Sakura said "How about you go first sensei?"

Kakashi sighed and said "Fine, My name is Hatake Kakashi, my likes hmmm , my dislikes are none of your business, my hobbies might be apparent to you soon and my dream is not something small kids like you should hear."

Naruto wondered " _He only gave us his name. Wonder why._ "

Kakashi said "So pinkie, how about you go next."

Sakura said "My name is Haruno Sakura, my likes …" and she squealed looking at Sasuke "my hobbies …." another glance at Sasuke "my dream for the future …" an outright blush with a not so subtle look at Sasuke "I dislike INO and NARUTO" she finished with a loud shout.

Kakashi thought " _A fan girl, man the academy is producing them more and more, I have already been given 7 fangirls with one on each of the teams I have tested. This is bad."_

He said "Ok broody, how about you go next since you seemed to capture most of her attention?"

Sasuke said "I am Uchiha Sasuke, I do not have any likes and dislikes, my dream … no my ambition is to kill a man." and looked off into space.

Sakura thought " _Sasuke-kun is soo cool."._ Naruto thought " _Man, that sucks."._ Kakashi thought " _He is really on the path of revenge. Wonder why everyone praises him so much, his mindset does not look very nice right now. I need to look at his psych. I hope I can get him off the path of revenge."_ Kakashi said "Ok… blondie, how about you go next?"

Naruto said "My name is Uzumaki Naruto, I like training, meditating, chakra, plants and Ichiraku ramen. I dislike a lot of things but mostly those who cannot differentiate a kunai from a scroll that contains it and entitled people, my hobbies are training, meditating and exercising and my dream for the future is to become strong to protect the few who are precious to me."

Kakashi nodded saying "That is good. Now that everyone knows everyone, we have a survival mission tomorrow."

Naruto asked "What exactly is the mission sensei?"

Kakashi said "It is a mission where the three of you survive against me."

Sakura said "But we already did survival missions in the academy sensei."

Kakashi said "Unlike the academy this is a test. If you cannot survive against me, you fail and return to the academy. You will not remain genin anymore.". He grinned a freakish grin not that naruto and the others could see in the mask but his eyes reflected some of the bloodlust he exuded. He said "This test has a 66 percent failure rate. Only 9 of 27 genin in a graduating class pass. The rest are sent back to the academy. Meet me at training ground 7 tomorrow morning at 5. Also …"

Kakashi got up, leaned back against the wall and opened his book making his intent to stay there obvious saying "I advise you not to eat anything in the morning. You will puke it out in the test. I am not answering any more questions. See you tomorrow."

Kakashi stayed silent and went back to doing his exercises on the roof. Sasuke looked at the two of them and then walked away while Sakura followed them.

After five minutes of this and silent companionship on the roof Kakashi asked "So Naruto, why did you not go with them to plan or even ask about a planning session?"

Naruto snorted while exercising and replied "They did not go to plan. Sasuke went to brood and train while Sakura went to stalk Sasuke. I already tried talking to them in class but they could not even hold a conversation with me forget about a battle plan. There is no point doing it now. Waste of time and energy honestly." Kakashi nodded his head and continued reading.

After another half hour Kakashi asked "So, how far along are you on the exercises for shape manipulation that I gave you?"

Naruto said "I mastered the first one. I finished the second one but I have not mastered it. I will probably be done mastering it by tomorrow morning. Then I will start the third one."

Kakashi was surprised but after the previous week in the academy he expected something along these lines, especially with him abusing the kage-bunshin. It was very good, just not surprising knowing it. Kakashi eye-smiled saying "That is very good progress, I still have not mastered the exercises I showed you. Once done with the third part as well, tell me and we will see how strong it is and where to go from there. Is that ok?" On seeing Naruto nod he said "Ja ne then Naruto. I have got to go." He closed his book, waved and vanished in a puff of smoke. Naruto thought " _Damn, kakashi sensei is really good. That sealless shunshin for someone who has learnt a lot more jutsu and does not have the abusing potential of kage-bunshin was very good. Even without all that, it is very good. I will struggle replicating that speed even if I am better at the other parts. I need to improve my mastery of shunshin."_

So saying, Naruto finished his repetition of the exercises and walked towards training ground 7. He got a general layout of the training field and set traps in the trees. Five in the morning meant that he cannot set traps tomorrow morning and that he would have to forego morning training with Gai.

The next morning, he met Gai and told him and Lee that he won't be able to do the full repetition that day. He did a basic warm-up and reached training ground 7 at 4: 45. Seeing no one there, he sat behind a tree and meditated while keeping a feel on his surroundings. He could feel Sasuke and Sakura when they entered the field. He kept meditating and lost track of time waiting for Kakashi. When he didn't come for half an hour, then Naruto figured it might be something of a pattern. He started exercising. He went through all his reps over and over till 8. Then had breakfast which was sealed. He offered an apple to a half sleepy Sakura and Sasuke. Both of them rejected it. He continued with his reps till 11 when the others were completely annoyed due to lack of sleep and too much hunger.

Kakashi appeared in a puff of smoke at 11. Sakura instantly shouted "YOU ARE LATE". Kakashi rubbed the back of his head saying "I got lost on the road of life." Sakura faceplanted and then started steaming while glaring angrily at Kakashi. Kakashi said "Anyways now that I am here, we can begin your test." He took out two bells and tied them to his waist saying "Your objective is to get these two bells. Whoever has a bell at the end of the time limit passes. Everyone else fails. I have set the alarm to ring signalling when the exam will end." Saying this, he took out an alarm clock and set it on a tree stump. He continued saying "The worst student will also get tied to the stump while watching the other two eat. Think of it like a punishment."

Sakura said "But sensei, there are only two bells."

Kakashi smiled and said "Glad you noticed Sakura. You are absolutely right. Any other questions?" He did not say anything but instantly the area tensed. If only two bells then only two people could pass. Kakashi said "If nothing else, then we can begin. Also remember to come at me with the intent to kill. Otherwise you will not succeed. We will start when I say begin."

Naruto instantly threw some shuriken at Kakashi but Kakashi caught them all saying "I did not say start Naruto."

Naruto smiled saying "Ninja sensei, I just had to try.". Kakashi nodded saying "Begin." Instantly Sakura and Sasuke ran and hid themselves in the trees. Kakashi looked towards Naruto saying "you do realise that the test has begun right?"

Naruto nodded saying "So Kakashi sensei, can you give me a bell?"

Kakashi asked "You know I am not going to favour you for any reason right?"

Naruto nodded saying "I am not looking for a favour. You just said we had to get a bell, why fight if I ask you and you give it willingly. By asking we can avoid the fighting right?"

Kakashi sighed saying "you will have the take the bell from me Naruto. You will have to win the bell from me. I will not give it peacefully."

Naruto nodded and started walking towards the stump to check the alarm. Kakashi asked "What are you doing Naruto?". Naruto replied "I am checking the time I have before the test ends. You just said that the alarm will ring. You did not say when. I might as well look before I plan." Kakashi nodded in approval and looked on as Naruto looked at the time, thought for a second. Then moved back from the alarm. Once done, he deactivated his weights and started stretching a little. Kakashi watched all this while he had a book in his hand. Naruto then got into a stance and said "Come kakashi sensei. I am willing to fight you now."

Kakashi was disappointed at this slightly but continued reading his book. Naruto instantly shunshined in front of Kakashi, no warning, no handsign, no chakra buildup and grabbed for the bells. It took every inch of speed Kakashi had to kawarimi with a log behind him. Naruto also kawarimied and attacked Kakashi. This started a Taijutsu battle. Kakashi was impressed since the speeds were that of almost low chunin level. It was not something that was easy to get. By the records, Naruto should have had low genin level speeds. This was surprising to everyone. Sakura watched Naruto just blur while Sasuke watched Naruto move at speeds that were slightly faster than even his top speed.

This took off in a Taijutsu battle that was fast paced. Naruto was not used to sparring with someone who is not his clone. Kakashi had to restrict himself to slightly above skill level each student was showing. The fact that the deadlast was showing almost low chunin level speed implied that kakashi had to move with low chunin level speed and skill. This became even more complicated with the use of clones and fighting multiple clones at once. Naruto summoned Kagebunshin behind Kakashi and they attacked him. Kakashi upped his skills to mid chunin to deal with it. The number of clones Naruto summoned was huge. Kakashi was systematically starting to defeat the clones and had beat around 4 when his hand passed through the fifth and he lost his balance a little.

Kakashi thought " _Smart bugger. He interspersed bunshin along with his kage-bunshin. Making me miss my shots sometimes and not knowing what to expect or to pay more attention."._ Kakashi continued wiping out clones slowly and steadily. The clones also started involving team warfare against him where he was attacked by teams of three clones and four clones. They henged into varying sizes for him to be able to deal with them. This forced him to pay attention and adjust his stances accordingly to deal with them causing more of a drain on his skills.

Sakura and Sasuke were just watching openmouthed. Naruto had summoned clones, henged them and was doing battle with Kakashi at very high speeds. Sakura could not even see them apart from blurs while Sasuke could just see them. Kakashi finally vanished above and let loose a fireball a the hoard of clones. When he saw that there were no clones in the field after his jutsu and also felt no residue of burst chakra, he figured the clones escaped. He made a kage-bunshin and went underground to deal with his other students while his kage-bunshin dealt with the clones and Naruto.

On reaching Sakura, Kakashi saw that a Naruto clone was with her. Kakashi got closer to them to hear them say "Sakura, Kakashi sensei is too strong. We cannot defeat them individually. We have to team up to beat him. All three of us." He internally felt happy that someone got it. Sakura said "You are too weak baka. Sasuke-kun can beat him. I will go help Sasuke-kun and follow him."

Naruto nodded saying "Fine, he is in the clearing ahead. Talk to him. Saying this, the Naruto clone poofed in smoke. Kakashi put Sakura in a simple genjutsu and she fainted. This was just a jutsu that showed her what according to her would be the worst possible thing to happen. It was a simple D-rank genjutsu and the girl had the potential for it. But she did not break out of it. Kakashi went to Sasuke.

Sasuke observed Kakashi leaning against the tree. He silently let loose a few shuriken at him. When Kakashi escaped he started running away to change his location. Kakashi instantly came in front of him to which Sasuke responded with a kick. Kakashi blocked it and threw Sasuke into a clearing in the forest and got down. Sasuke instantly attacked Kakashi. What followed was a brief Taijutsu bout where Sasuke also showed high genin speed and excellent Taijutsu skills. Frankly, Sasuke probably had a better grasp of Taijutsu than Naruto did but Naruto was a little faster even normally. Had Kakashi faced Sasuke first, he might have touched a bell but after facing Naruto, Kakashi upped his game and Sasuke had no chance at the bell.

Kakashi and Sasuke separated. While separating, Sasuke started going through handseals. Kakashi became wide-eyed thinking " _A normal genin should not have the chakra for that jutsu."_. He saw the fireball come at him, heard Sasuke yell " **Katon: Great Fireball no jutsu** " and he went underground.

Sasuke was looking waiting for him. He did not think Kakashi was burnt but by the time he looked all around and up, Kakashi had caught hold of Sasuke's leg and pulled him down to his neck into the ground. Kakashi said "You are good for an student who just graduated Sasuke. I will grant you that."

Saying this, Kakashi seeing Naruto trying to hide nearby poofed away to hide in one of the trees. Kakashi watched as Naruto walked up to Sasuke and spoke to him saying "Hey, we cannot beat him alone Sasuke. Lets all three team up. That might be the only chance we have of beating him. If not numbers then atleast skill set variations might surprise him."

During this Naruto was digging Sasuke out little by little. By this time, Sakura entered the clearing and on seeing Sasuke into the ground she shouted "Sasuke-kun" and fainted.

Both Naruto and Sasuke looked at her with distaste and waited while Naruto managed to dig Sasuke up till where Sasuke can pull himself out.

Sasuke said "I don't need your help dobe. I will get the bell myself."

Naruto looked at Sasuke and then looked at Sakura and then poofed into smoke. Kakashi saw this and went back to the clearing where he saw Naruto sitting next to the clock. He asked Naruto "Well, what now?"

Naruto said "Nothing else for it, I need to try my best to beat you." Saying this Naruto made a huge amount of clones and they started attacking him using all manner of combinations. They threw weapons which became clones half-way, they raced up to him using shunshin, they kawarimied with the weapons around him and kept engaging him with a lot of tactics. Kakashi was forced to up his skill level again to slightly above high chunin level speed and reflexes. He kept fighting and then suddenly the alarm rang and all the clones near him poofed. He was surprised since he did not think an hour had passed. Maybe he lost track of time fighting.

He looked around the clearing and saw that it was in slightly bad shape due to the spar he and Naruto had. He also saw Sakura and Sasuke come into the clearing. He said "Well, looks like you fail. None of you got the bells or the fact that this is a teamwork test. Enjoy the academy." He was about to puff away without bothering to hear the complaints or the grumblings of the three failed students when Naruto's voice said "I think you are wrong sensei."

Kakashi looked at him to see that he had two bells in his hand. Kakashi looked at his waist to see two bells there and he said "Nice try Naruto. But henging two clones to look like bells wont pass my test." At that instant the bells on his waist became clones and stood next to him while the bells in Naruto's hand were still there.

Kakashi grew wide-eyed. He did not realise when Naruto performed the switch. Then realised that the only time that Naruto could have successfully pulled it off is at the end when he made the whole bunch of kage-bunshin. The clearing was filled with his chakra so he would not notice the same come from near him when all the clones were already near him anyway. He was wide-eyed and said "Congrats Naruto, I guess you got the bells. What now?"

Naruto said "I have a question. No matter what, can I still come to you sometimes when I have a problem?" Kakashi nodded and then Naruto said "Well then Kakashi sensei, you can have one bell. I will keep the other bell just in case you are interested in keeping me as an apprentice. I am a field promoted genin. I cannot be sent back to the academy sensei. As for teamwork, this team will not work. I apologise but when the people in the team cannot talk, they definitely cannot work together. So I am all for walking away from this team. Here is the other bell." Saying this Naruto tossed the second bell at him.

Kakashi stared with a stony look on his face that one could not read through saying "Are you sure Naruto?" Naruto nodded while replying "I did not have a problem with teamwork sensei. I asked them. They rejected it. I have no intention of joining a team that will probably backstab me the moment their objective is achieved. They were even stupid enough to not wait to achieve their objective. Also, it's up to you now sensei. I displayed the skills you asked for. I completed my mission by getting a bell. My mission was never to beat you. I also displayed no issues with teamwork and was all for it but these two require a lot more work before I will be willing to work with them again. I need to be convinced that they have actually changed enough or have become professional enough to work on a team. Till then, I choose not to work with the two of them. The way I see it Kakashi sensei, the onus is on you. I have displayed the skills you asked for and am sitting here waiting with a bell. Will you take me on as an apprentice or fail me?"

Sasuke could not stand it any longer and attacked Naruto with a kunai to try to steal the bell from him. A clone materialised in front of Sasuke and tripped him while another sat on his back holding his hand behind his back with a knee on his spine and a kunai at his throat. Naruto said "Case in point Kakashi sensei" while Sakura was screaming at Naruto to unhand Sasuke.

Kakashi with a stony look on his face said "I will not be taking an apprentice today Naruto. I will be taking a team or failing all three of you.".

Naruto replied "If that is the case Kakashi sensei, I choose to fail. Here is the last bell. I would rather join the reserve force and work there than work in a team with these two." Saying this, he tossed a bell at Kakashi and walked away while dispelling the clone on top of Sasuke.

Kakashi was pissed but did not let that show. He just said "The two of you fail. Meet at the academy tomorrow at 8 in the morning in the grounds while we decide what should happen with the two of you. Naruto, considering that you are a reserve genin, meet the hokage in his office tonight at 8. I want to talk to you in his presence. Is that clear?"

Naruto nodded and continued walking away vanishing suddenly like an afterimage while Kakashi vanished in a puff of smoke.

At the Hokage's office *

Kakashi immediately went to the hokage's office to see the other jounins there waiting for him to arrive. He rubbed the back of his head saying "Yo, sorry I'm late, a black cat crossed my path and I had to arrive the long way.".

Most of the room felt pissed but since he was only an hour late this time, they were not very pissed since he was usually three hours late. The other jounin were almost done finishing their reports. Only the last three teams were left.

Hiruzen said "Now that Kakashi is here, we can hear his report. Not bad kakashi, you are right on time for giving your report rather than obscenely late. How did this happen?"

Kakashi looked up saying "What do you mean hokage-sama. My test was supposed to run till 1 which was at least 2 hours late from when we were supposed to meet." Kakashi looked at the clock to notice that it was only 11:30. He growled for the first time surprising everyone. Most of the jounin had only seen him apathetic and no one had ever seen him growl. He ground out "One of the brats cheated and I'm pretty sure I know which one. My report can wait till the end hokage sama. There are some issues that we need to cover."

Hiruzen nodded and said "Ok Kurenai, give me team 8's status."

Kurenai said "Team 8 consisting of Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba and Aburame Shino passed the test given to them. They had to hunt me together within a time frame of three hours while I was in the training ground. If they managed to find me they would pass. I kept moving around from one hiding place to another and they had to come physically to my location to pass. They did not need to touch me. They utilised their talents effectively. In the skills they are renowned for, each of them is solid genin. But the other skills are lagging behind. They have good survival skills as a whole but nothing else. Their stealth is very poor. Please keep in mind that these skills are being spoken about w.r.t the genin level I am expecting from when I graduated."

Hiruzen nodded saying "Continue Kurenai. So long as we know what your expectations are and where your genin stand we can continue."

Kurenai nodded saying "In ninjutsu, they did not show much talent. They seem to be a passive batch. Once they figured out that their objective was to find me in the presence of all three of them, they never thought to flush me out and always ran together. While the teamwork is appreciated, the one dimensional planning is bad. They did not use any."

Kurenai continued saying "When we are considering Taijutsu, Kiba and Hinata are at the level expected physically. They are solid genin with a solid genin level Taijutsu. Their speed and reflexes are also solid genin level showing why they have been promoted. This was expected considering that their clans were taijutsu oriented. Shino on the other hand was the surprise. He was on par with them in Taijutsu. He was slightly slower than them but still on the level I would expect from a rookie genin. This is unexpected considering that the Aburame are traditionally long range fighters and most of their jutsu are used for long range."

"No genjutsu was shown. Their survival skills were good since I had set a few tigers at them. They could not defeat them but successfully evaded them. A more in-depth testing is required before a final verdict can be passed but there are good indicators that they are survival oriented. Their stealth is very poor. They do not know of any of the jutsu used for stealth and cannot even walk with reduced noise. Considering the fact that all three are children of the various head of clans, I am assuming that they will be given clan training for their skills. Chakra wise they are where they are expected to be and their control is poor although Hinata's seems to be better." Kurenai continued.

Asuma interrupted saying "Kurenai, you are talking about the hard skills, what about the soft ones? The strategy, the improvisation, the attitude, the mental strength, the teamwork aspect, their mind-set and possible training there?"

Kurenai glared at Asuma a little saying "This is the part where the team has the most issues. Shino is the only one with any strategy in him. The others will have to learn a lot. Apart from that, each of them have their own issues what with Kiba trying to prove he is the alpha, Hinata being underconfident and Shino being too logical to understand camaraderie. They need to work together and work on those issues before they get better. Currently I are not sure where they will be most useful. I am working with the immediate plan being to get rid of the various mental problems, work on their physical skills, their chakra control and stealth. While doing this I will also be teaching them a genjutsu or a genjutsus release depending on if they have the control for it and all three of them basic first aid. I am working with the idea that this is a tracker survival hunter team."

Hiruzen nodded saying "That seems like a good idea. Keep up with it and report progress every two months. Now Asuma, only your team is remaining apart from Kakashi's. Tell me about the status of team 10."

Asuma stood up straighter from his slouching position all traces of being laidback vanishing. He said "My team is the Ino-Shika-Cho next are not solid genin if we are going by the old wartime standards but I understand that these are the standards that we are most familiar with here. All of them would be around the level of final year academy students. They also do not have any stealth or survival skills. They have a lot of mental strength and abilities. Their teamwork is excellent since they were being trained together from when they were children. They also have good strategic skills. Shikamaru is probably a genius and has skills above those of genin level and could probably apprentice in the village planning committee. Ino is a sure in with her intelligence skills and body language reading abilities. Choji is also decent but is usually laid back and prefers to defer to shikamaru. They can each contribute significantly if trained properly. Their ninjutsu also is very good and all three of them have a working knowledge of how to release up to C-Rank genjutsu."

Hiruzen was surprised but he did not let that show unlike a few other jounin who gasped at the wide range of skills of team 10. He asked "Why would you rate them at academy level instead of genin if they are this good?"

Asuma said "That is what I was coming to. They have zero motivation. Ino is a fan-girl and Choji defers to Shikamaru who is very lazy so does not train. This leads to them having very little chakra with choji being the exception since he is an akimichi but for an akimichi he has less chakra. They have no motivation to train and cannot implement their various skills in any form of battle or spar that is not a theoretical exercise. This is why they are considered academy level students. Their biggest problem and my biggest challenge in training them is motivation itself which is very difficult to get."

Hiruzen nodded and was about to say something when he saw Asuma continue "They are a capture and interrogate team being perfect for the T&I. They will be trained in that manner with all three having a working knowledge of poisons but Ino being the team poison expert and team medic. Shikamaru will be the strategist while Choji will be the blunt force so their training will be appropriate. They will be trained in stealth, survival, increasing their physical skills, increasing their chakra control and amount, poison, medical studies and then be given a lot of experience. The rest will be handled by their clan heads since they are heirs and have to learn clan jutsu."

Hiruzen nodded saying "That is a reasonable approach. Continue and let me know regarding progress. Everyone is dismissed except Kakashi, Kurenai and Asuma."

Everyone nodded and then went away. After waiting for the smoke to disperse Kakashi saw only the three of them and the hidden ANBU.

Hiruzen pointing to Kurenai and Asuma said "They are here because their teams are the only ones that passed. All of the other teams had students with academy level skills in all aspects and not even one genin level skill. I need to look into the academy to see what is happening. Now out with your report. What is the problem Kakashi?"

Kakashi nodded saying "I was assigned team 7 with Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto as you know. I would like to give the skill assessment first before I give status if that is alright?". Seeing Hiruzen nod Kakashi said "All their skills are widely varied and they do not have much in common so it will be individual reports. We begin with Sakura. She has pathetic reserves, probably very good control over it, no stealth, no survival skills, probably no good ninjutsu which she cannot use much anyway, weak physical skills not even close to the academy final years and finally decent but not effective taijutsu. Her genjutsu potential is supposed to be vast but she could not break out of a D-Rank genjutsu. Regarding her mental skills, she is a fan-girl, did not show any strategic output, followed a by the book approach with no innovation, was not conducive to a teamwork environment and had nothing else that stood out."

"At the end I am wondering why she was allowed to graduate much less granted kunoichi of the year status. Her only selling point is that she has very good control but that is because of poor reserves. She could be a great medic nin or even be an administrative ninja, maybe even a genjutsu/taijutsu support but it will require harsh training and at least another year. In my honest opinion she should not have graduated but has graduated because she has some really good theory skills. She does not have any practical skills and thus being in the field will require a lot of work from her." Kakashi finished.

Hiruzen looked at kakashi while kurenai said "She honestly can't be that bad Kakashi. She was granted the kunoichi of the year status over both Hinata Hyuga and Ino Yamanaka. She should have some amount of skill."

Kakashi replied "She does, she has near perfect chakra control, an excellent grasp over theory and a good mind making her a sure in for a medic nin. All her other practical skills are non existent apart from her taijutsu which does not matter anyway because she does not have the physical speed or strength to back it up. If she has to be in the field, I would recommend four months of intense training for her to up her physical skills before I even suggest calling her anywhere close to low-genin for her physical skills."

Hiruzen said "Continue." to which Kakashi nodded saying "Sasuke is good. In all the practical aspects of being a ninja as well as the theoretical aspects I would rate him solid genin at the least. His weapon skills and trap skills are decent. His speed is high genin. He would have been perfect as a posterboy for the genin position during the wartime scenario. This is only in physical skills mind you. His mental problems are completely different. He has issues with everyone and demands stuff as his right as an uchiha supposedly. He also has no intention of any kind of teamwork and all that prodigy and genius praise has gone into his head. He will not work on any team and will not respect anyone weaker than him no matter what. He will not even listen to their opinion. He will just use them and walk away. He is revenge driven and shows lots of signs of betrayal. I want him examined by a psych who is not partial or under the council. His behaviour raised a few red flags which were not in his psych profile. Any work regarding his mental skills can only be approached after a psych evaluation but for now the approach to working with him would be to increase his physical skills as well as teach him genjutsu, genjutsu detection and genjutsu release to give him the impression that we are preparing him for Itachi."

Hiruzen nodded saying "I will get him evaluated by Inoichi. He should give us a fair report of Sasuke's psych profile. Since you are keeping Naruto for the end, I assume he is the problem causer? How bad or good was he?"

Kurenai went "He was the dead last, surely he cannot be good. Bad I can imagine but his chases through the village show that he at the least has some good physical and strategic skills."

Kakashi sighed "As of right now, I am not sure how to categorise him. He has low chunin level physical skills. That is low chunin level speed and strength. While the jump between genins is not very high, the jumps from genin to chunin is high and each level from here gets even larger due to specialisation. And while his taijutsu is not very strong yet, he seems to have learnt only the basic stances well, he can utilise it very well with his speed making him the strongest taijutsu fighter in the team. But his speciality is ninjutsu. As of right now, if not for the fact that he knows pathetically few ninjutsu, I would rate him as a mid jonin level to elite jounin level ninjutsu expert." Saying this, Kakashi sighed.

Asuma looked at him sharply and said "Explain. Even Itachi was not that good when he graduated. We do not want another Itachi."

Kakashi sighed "He knows only five jutsu that I know of. The academy three, kage-bunshin and shunshin. All five are simple jutsu. The problem is his mastery of them. His shunshin is almost as fast as mine and he demonstrates way better control over his shunshin than I do. There is no indication that he is going to move or arrive. Same for Kawarimi. No indication, very long range, no disorientation. Both of the above jutsu were also sealless and silent. He weaponised them by using Kawarimi to disorient me and shunsin in chain steps to keep me on my feet. His strategic abilities are also very good for a genin. He used Bunshin and kagebunshin together to keep me on my feet and cause me to overextend at times. He henged his clones into kunai and then dispelled the henge to attack me when I was not expecting it, he actually tried to get them to work as a team. Now I am sure that he does not know about the test being a teamwork test. He was not smart enough to look at the test that deeply. He took it at face value that he had to get the bells to pass. He just thought of teamwork first rather than individual skills after information gathering."

Kakashi said "Now the worst part is this is all him solo. Assume that this is multiplied by about a hundred clones each with the same skill level and you will understand why I cannot decide. He does not have knowledge on genjutsu, medical or poison skills. He has a very basic self taught idea of survival and stealth which works decently. His chakra control is pretty decent and his reserves are humongous. The first problem is how to rate him. Individually if only his skills are considered, he would be high genin at best with a focus on physical skills. But consider that it is him with a huge amount of kage-bunshin each in their own team formations of different sizes forcing me to adapt to each of them and frequently substituting with each other and we have someone who is very strong in a straightforward fight. Honestly, a little bit of stealth, survival and genjutsu training, a knowledge of konoha operating protocols that everyone needs, more practice and a little experience and I would give him low chunin level already."

Kurenai said "But he was the dead last. He was supposed to be dumb and not very good."

Kakashi said "That is because of the same reason Sakura was supposed to be the kunoichi of the year, she is excellent at theory while he felt bored. So he didn't bother attending. It does not reflect in his skills. He learns very fast."

Hiruzen with a steely look said"I am still not seeing a problem Kakashi. Why the long assed explanation."

Kakashi said "It's because of what he did. He asked his teammates to work with him. Twice. They rejected him each time. So he single handedly completed the mission and got the bells." Kakashi looked at the surprised look on people's faces, genin were not supposed to get the bell. That was the whole point of the bell test. They were supposed to fail and work together to try their best to get it. The not getting the bell just added to the frustration which might cause friction in their teamwork. Kakashi said "He set the alarm earlier than I expected and Kawarimied two henged clones with the bells. The alarm rang. I failed them and told them it was a teamwork test. I was about to come back here when he stopped me, tossed me a bell. Told me he satisfied both aspects of the test with the teamwork requirement as well as the get the bell requirement and asked what now. I told him that was his choice. He could work with the team and pass if they worked together or fail. I told him I was not taking an apprentice. He told me he was a field promoted genin and could not go back to the academy. He did not have a problem but seeing the way they responded to him he said that he would rather fail and be a genin on the force rather than work with them in a team. He threw the bell at me and walked away. I told him to meet here at 8 tonight and came here.".

Everything towards the end was said in such a matter of fact tone that the rest of them were wondering why it was that way. When they heard that he walked away from a team intentionally failing and wanting to be on the reserve Asuma started chuckling at his balls. But by the time he got one out there was a sudden pressure in the air pushing him down. He looked around to see that everyone was being pushed down and were struggling to stand up. He looked to see his dad have a scarily void look on his face. Hiruzen turned to Kakashi and asked "I am aware he knows about the difficulties of joining the reserve force. I do not want to see him on it even though he would probably excel there. How bad were the others to not make him want to work with them?"

Kakashi grimaced and said "Bad hokage-sama. Workable but bad."

The weight increased and now kurenai was struggling to breathe while Asuma was starting to bow slightly. Kurenai looked to see Kakashi standing straight with the only indication that he was also feeling the pressure being a very slight stiffness in his body with absolutely no problems in breathing or posture. Even the ANBU who are usually hidden were on the floor bowing like Kurenai and having trouble breathing. She was shocked at the difference. She also was elite jounin and realised that there were huge gaps in the ranks in terms of strength but such a huge gap was not something she expected. She heard hokage-sama say "How long will it take you to work on them to a level where he is willing to join the team?"

Kakashi said "I honestly am not sure hokage-sama since it will depend on the psych report for Sasuke but if I can give an estimate with some breathing space I would say three to four months."

The weight in the room vanished and everyone breathed a little. They looked to see Hiruzen thinking saying "That is workable. We can sell it to the council that your team passed and you are giving special training to Sasuke and Sakura. They don't want Naruto trained anyway. You will help him in his training using a shadow clone but covertly. Naruto will learn Konoha's working policies while acting like an individual genin and doing D-ranks. He will also be experiencing a lot of freedom that way. This will increase his visibility in the village with people eventually being willing to work with him."

Oh and Kakashi," here he paused and looked up to see that Kakashi was being serious and paying attention. Once he was sure that he was he said "No being late to the training. The earlier Naruto is in a team the better. While Sasuke is the last Uchiha and stuff, Naruto is the person who is predicted to be one of the strongest in his generation for a variety of reasons and the one to watch out for. I will not tolerate konoha losing out on him because of anything stupid. Is that clear?"

Kakashi nodded and then Hiruzen said "Good. I will meet him at 8 tonight and will explain the situation to him. You can begin working on breaking your team. Also Sasuke Uchiha will undergo a psych evaluation tomorrow morning first thing. I will send a note to Inoichi. Sakura is to be made into a kunoichi. How you do it is up to you Kakashi. I don't mind even if Dog enters the fray."

At this Kakashi had put his book inside his bag and looked a little surprised saying ""They will die if Dog enters the fray. Even ANBU quit when Dog enters the fray."

Hiruzen said "Like i said Kakashi, do what you think will work. I don't care how. At the end of three to four months as per your final time estimate tomorrow, I need a working decent team to place Naruto in. Is that understood?".

Kakashi nodded saying "Yes hokage-sama. I understand clearly."

Hiruzen said "Good, Kurenai, Asuma, you have your orders as well. Dismissed.". He went back to paperwork while they walked away. Mentally he was preparing for Naruto's meeting that night.


	7. Chapter 7: The way ahead

**Forge your path**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto**

 **A.N: There might be a slight delay in the chapter updates. Work in RL has caught up and this is the last of the chapters I have pre-written. I will write the next chapter whenever I am free but as I said, there might be a delay.**

 **Chapter 7: The way ahead**

Naruto did not know what to expect. He understood a few of the problems with joining the reserve force but he did not understand what the issue with joining it was. Sure he would not have the political backing he would have otherwise but so what? Isn't a shinobi supposed to stay hidden and deceive with their talents? Being in the main force would ensure that there was always an eye on him. As it is he was being followed all over the place and it was getting very difficult to keep stuff hidden from his watchers. He hoped that this situation would change once he entered the reserve force.

He walked up to the hokage's office for his meeting at 8. He didn't know what to expect. So he went in with an open mind to see what is being said. He said hi to the receptionist and on her assurance he knocked on the door asking permission to enter. On hearing hokage-jiji's voice saying come in, he entered to see hokage jiji alone.

He said "Hey jiji, how come you are alone, Kakashi sensei said he would meet me here and wanted to talk to me in front of you. Is he running late as usual? Is this a pattern because this has already happened to us twice."

Hiruzen smiled and said "No Naruto-kun. I wanted to talk to you. And Kakashi won't be coming. He reported today's test from his point of view and told me his concerns. I wanted to talk to you to understand what happened and why you wanted to be on the reserve force before I come to a decision."

Naruto said "Ok Jiji, but first answer this, why is being in the reserve force spoken of as a bad thing?"

Hiruzen said "It is not a bad thing Naruto. It is just that usually leaders do not come from the reserve force. Think of this in the following manner. Konoha is just like every other hidden village out there. We also have a huge amount of people who can fight and injure people. That is the reserve force. Sure the main force can do it better but the reserve force has more in numbers. They fight and are good but without anyone to teach them konoha's ideology, we are not sure if they are good leaders."

Naruto tilted his head sideways and said "I don't get it Jiji."

Hiruzen asked "What separates Konoha from the other villages Naruto?"

Naruto answers "Teamwork jiji. Iruka sensei told me that Konoha teamwork is very good."

Hiruzen said "But the other villages also have teamwork Naruto. Why is konoha different? What about konoha is different from the other villages? You are very close. Think about it and answer."

Naruto replies "I don't know jiji."

Hiruzen says "Ok, let's list all the things you know about konoha that is different from the other villages."

Naruto nods and says "the first thing is that this is like a civilian village with a huge portion of the population being civilians. The second thing is that there is a lot of civilian representation in the ninja forces, with special non fighting tasks being given to them. The third aspect is the clans. Konoha has some of the largest bloodline wielding clans in the elemental nations and finally is the teamwork. Konoha stresses on teamwork beyond all the other villages.

Hiruzen nodded at all of those points and when it looked like naruto was done he said "All the points that you mentioned are good Naruto. The final point that you missed out and one of the most important ones as well as the ones that distinguish leaders in our village is the will of fire."

Naruto looked confused and asked "The will of fire? I thought it was a way to inspire and not a real thing jiji."

Hiruzen says "That is where you are wrong naruto. The will of fire is a very real thing. It is the will to protect, the will to never give up, the will to fight beyond our capabilities and rise to new levels for a cause, the will to accept death as a friend and do anything to protect, the will to sacrifice, the will to live on even when everything around you is crumbling, the will to be a pillar on which the rest of the village stands, the will to do what is right even if the whole world stands against you. It is a very real thing Naruto. It is what distinguishes hokages from other ninjas."

Naruto asked "How come jiji?"

Hiruzen said "To be a hokage is not only to be the strongest Naruto. Even before I was made hokage, I was stronger than my teacher the second hokage. There were probably one or two more people in the village who were stronger than him. The same for the fourth hokage, he was not the strongest in his time. He was the fastest and the most ingenious and given a few more years would definitely rise to be the strongest in his time but he was not the strongest in his time when he was made hokage, each of my students as well as me were stronger if only a little. Hell even his wife was stronger than he was. He was still made the hokage while they were passed over. This is because of the will of fire. He always had the will to rise when the need is there, to do what requires to be done and what is right. It is another thing that people who do that inevitably end up strong but the cause is the will of fire, the effect is the strength."

Naruto was scratching his ears looking a little bored. When hiruzen was done he said "That is all good jiji but how does that tie up in this situation. Also, I think you are lying, how can you an old geezer be stronger than the fourth hokage who sealed the kyuubi away?"

Hiruzen laughed out fully. It was refreshing to him how a kid treated him as an equal and spoke to him freely. How even when not knowing about him he treated him respectfully but still casually. It felt good. He said "Believe what you will Naruto. But truthfully, I didn't lie. Not even once during the whole discussion regarding the will of fire. Now it relates to the current situation because the reserve force generally consists of those people who do not grasp the importance of the will of fire. There are a few cases who are placed there by mistake but that is usually rectified soon. The main teams are chosen by the most likely candidates to understand and show the will of fire. This is also the reason I do not want you in the reserve force Naruto. You show the will in startling amounts everyday."

Naruto looked truly confused and suspicious saying "Are you setting the ninja to watch me everyday ?"

Hiruzen said "What are you talking about?"

Naruto said "I can always somehow smell ninja watching me everyday whenever I try to train. I don't know who they are and they keep changing but there are always three or more ninja watching me everyday."

Hiruzen grew a little serious and said "I have one watching you everyday but this started only since you started training. The ninja who is watching you is adept at suppressing the kyuubi to a certain extent and we just want to ensure that your training method which is untested so far does not in any manner affect the kyuubi seal. I will look into the other two ninja but I assure you, this is recent and will continue only for some more time before he stops."

Naruto nodded saying "Now, how do you know I display the will jiji?"

Hiruzen said "I see it in you Naruto. I see it when you try to be happy despite the people of konoha being bad towards you. You may not love them but you do not hate them. That is because of the will itself. I see it in you when you step forward with a single minded determination to achieve what you want to. I saw it when you said you will get strong enough to make me tell you about your parents in six months. I saw it in a lot of other cases Naruto. From when you were a kid you were displaying the will of fire. Even if it could be mistaken at times, it cannot be a mistake every time. There is a reason you were allowed to take the genin exam three times and fail three times. I would have even let you take it a fourth time and then if required assigned you personal attention."

Naruto was shocked saying "You would do that for me jiji?"

Hiruzen said "It's not only for you Naruto. While I love you with all my heart and treat you like my grandson do not forget that I am the hokage of konoha. I have to ensure that Konoha gets the best leaders it can to survive. You have been slated to become one of konoha's leaders since you showed the will of fire which was around since you were five years old. Before then, you were already like a grandson considering my friendship with your parents but not someone whom I would hold this close. I saw potential in you Naruto. Potential to be the next protector of Konoha. To take on the job that I have now. That is why I have always encouraged you to do what you think is right and always helped you discern whether what you did is right or wrong and why it was right or wrong. Remember what I told you Naruto when you graduated, I would gladly trust you with my life if it will help you in any way but I still cannot trust you with konoha's. This is the same scenario."

Naruto looked a little hurt saying "So all this time you manipulated me?"

Hiruzen instantly rebutted that statement saying "No more than we manipulate our kids to become better. I honestly cared for you and wanted you to become the best you can be. That by definition requires me to manipulate you to a certain extent towards what is right and wrong. This kind of manipulation is called learning and is why parents can make choices for their children till they are old enough to make the choices themselves. You are hurt about it now but think about it and talk to me about this particular thing later. Is that clear?"

Naruto said "Yes hokage-sama. How does this relate to the reserve forces?"

Hiruzen said "I do not doubt you will grow in the reserve forces Naruto. You show the will and can grow in both the normal ones and the reserve ones. But the normal ones are more geared towards leadership than the reserved ones. The jonin sensei here can teach you what the will of fire means. How to embody it if required even if in small amounts. Each of them have the will in some small extent. You were to be trained by Kakashi Hatake who would have gone on to be the next hokage candidate after the Yondaime but he gave up and is still recuperating from the loss of his team and teacher. He was the student of the yondaime and when the yondaime died, he lost the last remaining link to his world, his people. While he sees konoha as a whole as worthy to protect, his will shone exceedingly brightly when he protected his world and his people. The past few years are when he is trying to rebuild it. If he manages to, he is a possible hokage candidate. He is also the perfect candidate to teach you about the will in the current generation."

Naruto said "Is Kakashi sensei that good ?"

Hiruzen said "Kakashi is currently the fourth strongest shinobi in the konoha shinobi forces. The first three are from older generations and have at least 20 years experience over him. He is still on a comparable scale to them. That should give you an idea of his strength. The only person even close to him in strength from his generation is Gai. You know both of them."

Naruto said "So that is why you introduced them to me?"

Hiruzen said "Yes, you need to learn from the right examples. That is also why I do not want you in the reserve team. While I would like the choice to be one you make, I am not above ordering it as your commander."

Naruto bristled saying "So I have to work with those two and get hurt by them? Is this what you want to do to me Hokage-sama? Get backstabbed and hurt all the time? Wasn't the villagers being stupid enough? Should the shinobi also hurt me now?This is bullshit hokage-sama. I will ..."

Hiruzen raised his hands to stop Naruto and said "Here me out before jumping to conclusions Naruto. You should know by now that information is important."

Naruto visibly struggled to relax, took a few deep breaths and despite still having a frown on his face looked at Hiruzen. Hiruzen patiently waited for Naruto to get in control of himself and then said "I did not say that you will have to work with them when they will hurt you. I understand your concerns and they are very valid. This is further shown when you were willing to work with them despite the confrontation in the classroom. So we have come to a compromise. Are you willing to listen?"

Seeing Naruto nod he continued "The compromise is this. You will officially be on team 7 while unofficially be on the reserve force for a total of approximately four months. That is roughly the time given to Kakashi to ensure that the team is in working order or at least professional if not friendly. You will be allowed to do D-Rank missions and will be educated on all the required protocols that you need to know as a member on the reserve force. Also, Kakashi will meet you to teach you about the more diplomatic and softer aspects of being a shinobi. While both of us agree that you are strong for a genin, there is more to being a shinobi than plain strength. For example, if you had better structured your teamwork request, you could have possibly got them to work on a team. Now, do not make that face, I know it is possible because I have seen teams worse than yours work together."

Naruto nodded sullenly. Seeing this Hiruzen continued "You already have the book regarding jutsu creation and mastery. That along with the shape manipulation exercise Kakashi gave should take care of your shape manipulation. But the softer aspects of being a shinobi require experience and a teacher. That is what you will be learning in the reserve force. How to gather information discreetly, how to be diplomatic, how to fight with words, how to convince people without using a shred of chakra, konoha's operating protocols, silent communication and a whole host of other things. I want you to not deviate from what you were doing already. This will add on. Is that clear?"

Naruto said "But hokage-sama, you said take a few things and master them. It seems like I am trying to learn too many things simultaneously."

Hiruzen said "You will learn this sequentially. That is why I said continue what you were learning. This is only a side thing and is not going to be a main kage-bunshin training experience."

Naruto nodded and bowed saying "Ok hokage-sama. As you command.".

Hiruzen said "Naruto, enter the mission office at 8 tomorrow morning. You will find Kakashi there. He will help you with basic mission stuff. After that you both can set up a timing which is mutually convenient for teaching. Continue with your training. Also thinking about the part where you think I manipulated you and compare it to parents or grandparents teaching their children about right and wrong."

Naruto said "Yes hokage-sama."

Hiruzen said "Also naruto, this is your jiji speaking. I know it will take time for you to think it through but I would like to get back to being jiji again so please don't waste too much time before the thinking. Also do your best. You can be great. Don't let small things stop you from being who you can be."

Naruto just nodded and kept silent. Seeing this Hiruzen said "You can go now Naruto. Good night."

Naruto nodded and left out of the door. When hiruzen was sure he was not coming back he spoke out seemingly to the air itself saying "You heard what he said right ?"

Kakashi materialised in front of Hiruzen saying "Yes hokage sama, although I wonder if it is a good idea to try to tell him that you have to a certain extent manipulated him? Also I am not sure that I like the idea of you manipulating sensei's son.". There was a steely edge in his voice that was very well hidden to most but easily visible to Hiruzen.

Hiruzen said "That is the thing Kakashi. I am not manipulating him because he is the kyuubi jinchuriki or some such bullshit. While it is true that being the kyuubi jinchuriki gives him a huge advantage, he genuinely has a lot of ability to be strong. If all goes according to plan you are looking at a future hokage of Konoha. I need him to be strong to take that position, strong enough to stand head and shoulders above everyone else. And this has always happened and will always happen. The only reason you are seeing it live is because what I told him is right. There might come a point of time when I am no longer here and it falls onto you to mould him into becoming the hokage he needs to be. That is why you are seeing this. Every possible hokage character is vetted thoroughly and moulded from a very young age to become hokage. I will repeat what I said to him Kakashi. Although you are much stronger than him and I trust a lot of Konoha to you, I will trust my life but not the entirety of Konoha to you as you are now. Start training and become the ninja you were supposed to be and on the path to being, then we will talk about how to handle people. You have your directions from the previous discussion."

Kakashi just stared at him for a single second. One single second when suddenly everyone in the room felt something had changed. Something very drastic. The ANBU in the room had a very foreboding feeling. Only one of them recognised this feeling since he was on the original squad that Kakashi had trained. He strengthened up but even he was not prepared for what happened. Suddenly the room did not contain two good natured laid back ninja legends being casual, the room contained two killers, so strong that each of them was revered in a land full of killers to a huge extent. Two people who were standing and letting loose their considerable intents and abilities in the mental domain, two will's clashing, weighing the very air around them. The room became hot and for those who noticed, for that one second things had changed.

Kakashi's laid back posture was there but the look in his eyes and the chill there would send even the strongest of ANBU in the village running to the hills. Gone was the easy-going pervy lazy jounin. Back was the cold blooded killer whose meteroic rise through the ranks was only stopped because they felt he was too young to face the realities of that position while still having the skills for it. The one who had carved his way through one war from when he was a kid, entered a battlefield of teams of grown men and walked away alone. The one who stood against everything that the world threw at him and came back standing so far, the dreaded ANBU who never failed a mission and had an impossibly huge count of S-Rank missions. The one who embodied the konoha policy of not being aggressive but being lethal when required. One who brought all of his experience, which was considerable considering he was on the battlefield from the age of 5 and his intent honed to a sharp edge was in the room for all to bear .

But this alone was not the only thing they had to deal with. Kakashi Hatake might be legendary and send a lot of people and whole teams running to the hills but he was facing someone who sent teams of people like him scared. Hiruzen Sarutobi might be old but experience is it's own gain. His eyes were just as genial as always with a slight steely look to them. He was in the action of filling his pipe and this seemed to be a routine activity. But in that one second the killer in him was unleashed. The man who fought in all three wars. Led two of them. Survived and killed so many people it was hard to imagine. The man who was revered in a land of killers as a God for his skills and abilities in the same. The one who many considered untouchable by his generation and the next in his prime. All of his intent and experience was clashing in the room with that of the killer in front of him. It would normally snuff anyone else's intent like a candle before a storm but there were four or five people who could stand in front of him in konoha and one of them was standing there.

The clashing of intents was heavy, there was no discharge of chakra, there was no posturing. Kakashi was taking out his book from his pouch while Hiruzen was filling his pipe. The ANBU were already on the floor. And the worst part was that they were only facing the side-effect. They were not even the target. Only one of them knew what it felt like to be the target of that intent from one person and the other was even more legendary. To have both of them focus on any one of them would make them kill themselves. It doesn't matter that they themselves were no mere genin. They were ANBU and were trained killers. They were very strong both physically and mentally but as one rises in the ranks, the differences between levels and skill levels becomes huge. The ANBU were good but each of the people standing there could take on three or more teams of ANBU singlehandedly and come out standing without significant injury in their prime. While their ability reduced a little, their intent only become stronger with experience.

The one second passed and something passed between Hiruzen and Kakashi. A warning of sorts that both understood and both acknowledged. That one second which seemed like an eternity passed and suddenly the weight lifted and the ANBU started breathing. Kakashi had his book out and was looking into it while Hiruzen had filled his pipe. Kakashi looked at the ANBU and then saw Tora there and said "Yo Tora, you guys have become weak. Are you even training each other and the new recruits properly?"

The ANBU were bristling while Tenzo said "Kakashi taichou, we are training. We just are not doing it to your standards. That will kill the new recruits."

Kakashi said "You are supposed to protect the hokage. How will you do your job if you can't even stand next to him when he is not battling? Stop being stupid and start training, otherwise I will send dog back to get you into shape."

Tenzo shivered a little and said "I will train Kakashi taichou. This will not happen again.". The other ANBU were just wondering why their captain was shivering at Kakashi when Kakashi had so blatantly insulted him and them and why he called Kakashi taichou. Seeing Kakashi nod he and the rest of the ANBU vanished to the normal eye.

Kakashi looked at Hiruzen and said "Good night Hokage-sama."

Hiruzen looked at him with thoughtful eyes and said "Good night Kakashi-kun. You have grown weaker. Train to get back into shape and then lets discuss things further shall we?"

Kakashi nodded and vanished in a swirl of leaves while the ANBU were hoping that they were not there when the discussion continued further or at least that it took place after a long enough time so that they could stay standing in the meeting and not on the floor trying their level best to breathe.

NEXT MORNING

Naruto woke up that morning and went on to do his usual exercises with Gai. On reaching the training grounds he already saw Gai sensei there while Lee was yet to come. Naruto said "Good morning Gai-sensei."

Gai looked at Naruto and said "Good morning Naruto. How did your test go?"

Naruto scowled at Gai sensei saying "No fair Gai-sensei. You could have at least warned me about the test."

Gai said "But it was a test of your youth Naruto. You cannot perform in the test if you are prepared for it. Now stop hiding and tell me how it went."

Naruto said "We passed but due to some issues, I will be joining team 7 in four months. In that time they will be trained on certain skills while I will be trained on other skills separately."

Gai got a somewhat serious look on his face but he knew that Kakashi did not discriminate against Naruto. So he asked "Why is that the case Naruto?"

Naruto said "Teamwork issues Gai-sensei. I passed my test. Both got the bells as well as asked them to work on the team. They rejected. So I told kakashi sensei that I would not work on a team that cannot be professional forget about friendly and walked away. But he had to pass us due to reasons. So they are working on how to be professional and teamwork while I am being taught how to be more diplomatic and learn to convince people without using chakra and only using my words."

Gai nodded saying "That is a useful skill to have Naruto-kun. Now how is your taijutsu training coming along?"

Naruto said "I have mastered the basic stances in the scroll you gave me sensei. Now I am beginning to move towards the intermediate stances and katas. Also, I think I need to start training my body physically to gain the necessary muscles in the places where I punch and kick because even though I have the clone memory, I do not have the muscle strength for it. I also need experience so I will probably be sparring against Lee and you very often sensei."

Gai nodded saying "Good, I wanted you to recognise that for yourself, otherwise you are not training properly or reached the level where I wanted you to be at before I gave you your next lesson. We are changing up our schedule. Everyday morning, we will do our basic exercises for one hour from four to five. Then there will be a constant sparring session between you and lee for two hours while your kage-bunshin spar against me one after the other. That will continue till seven when you should be able to get back to work. Is that good?"

Naruto said "Sure Gai sensei. You are the best. Now how is Lee late?"

Gai said "It is only 3:45 Naruto. Lee has time till 4:00 to begin fanning his flames of youth. Also a ninja is not to come too early or too late."

Naruto nodded and started on some basic warm-up stretches while Gai joined him. After sometime there was a running sound and with a small dust-cloud trailing behind him, Lee entered the training ground.

He looked at Naruto and said "I can see you still have your headband Naruto-kun. Your flames of youth are rising. You must be very youthful to have passed your jonin sensei's test."

Naruto just smiled and said "Good morning to you too Lee. Thank you. Shall we start?"

Lee nodded saying "Morning Gai-sensei. We can begin Naruto if Gai sensei is ready."

Gai said "Change of plans a little Lee. From today, we exercise only till five in the morning then we spar till 7."

Lee said "YOSH! Our flames of youth will burn more brightly with the constant tests everyday. This is truly a youthfully brilliant idea Gai-Sensei."

Gai sensei said "Lee"

"Gai -sensei.."

"Lee …."

"All right that is enough. Let us begin our training shall we?" Naruto interjected thinking " _It is too early in the morning for their sunset of youth genjutsu."_. Lee and Gai nodded and they started on their exercise and morning routine.

After a burning workout and thoroughly getting his ass kicked by both Lee and Gai, who both had insane amounts of experience over him and a speed advantage as well, Naruto went back to his apartment to get ready. He changed, refreshed himself, and then left for the mission office to be there at 8 to meet Kakashi. Before that he made a huge bunch of clones. He didn't know where to train them since Iruka already told him that he could not train on the academy grounds anymore since he graduated. He decided to train at one of the training grounds beyond the forest of death. It was far and no one usually turned up there. All his clones vanished in a shunshin to the training ground he had in mind while he continued on to the mission office.


	8. Chapter 8: Boring msns

**Forge your path**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. This is written purely for entertainment purposes.**

 **AN: Never thought I would get even fifty followers. Hit that last chapter. To the followers of this story. Thank you. :-). Also, real life is catching up with me and I won't be able to update as quickly. I hope I can keep up a steady update rate. :-). I can probably promise constant updates from end of june. Till then the updates will be somewhat rare or random depending on whether I can get the chapter done.**

 **Chapter 8: Boring missions and interesting occurrences**

Naruto ended up at the mission office at 8. He looked around and saw Kakashi sensei leaning against the wall reading his book right next to the door. Naruto just shook his head and sighed. He walked towards the silver haired jounin saying "Hey Kakashi sensei. Wassup?"

Kakashi looked up from his book at Naruto, his one eye closing in a smile. He waveed his hand and said "Yo, Naruto. Nothing much, this book is interesting."

Naruto looked at Kakashi and said "It's that Ero book isn't it?"

Kakashi was a little surprised at Naruto knowing about the book and asked "How do you know about this Naruto? Aren't you a little young to be reading porn?"

Naruto scoffed and said "I don't like it much sensei. It is just porn without plot and while it is good when I'm feeling particularly horny, it is not great. Also I read the book because I needed some inspiration for my Orioke jutsu. Needed to know what measurements a man would find attractive and where better to get that inspiration than from the best selling perverted book that all men seem to enjoy?"

Kakashi sheepishly smiled saying "Yea, I don't believe you. You are just a closet pervert. Anyway onto other matters. How goes your shape manipulation training?"

Naruto here smirked and rubbed his nose saying "I've mastered the second exercise to the time you gave me. I am on the third exercise. I think I will get it soon Kakashi sensei."

Kakashi looked a little surprised since although Naruto had told him about this, he did not expect it, but hey, Naruto was training day and night constantly with kage-bunshin. So this was to be expected considering that he was not as dumb as everyone seemed to believe he was. He just said "Good job. Let me know when you are done mastering the third step and we will see how to go about expanding on it. Now did Iruka ever explain the mission levels to you?"

Naruto nodded saying "Yeah, he did. Iruka sensei was awesome but he explained that I will have to do some shitty chores disguised as missions for some reason. Hey it helps, since it gives me cash and adds to my file thus making it easier for me to take higher level missions. So why not. Is that all?"

Kakashi nodded saying "Yeah, now I will take you around the mission control office and teach you what forms to fill, how to work about getting a mission, how to identify and keep track of key targets in the missions, what details are expected in a mission report w.r.t the mission itself, what extra details to add if relevant to konoha and where to add them, the policy used for each of the missions and how to go about handling changes in mission difficulty. Shall we begin? Also how is your handwriting? Since the mission report people hate people writing badly."

One of the chunin sitting on the tables nearby commented "You know kakashi-san, I knew that you wrote those shitty mission reports in that handwriting for a reason. You are an annoying bastard Kakashi-san. Do not corrupt the next generation, I beg of you."

Kakashi just looked up saying "Chunin-san, did you say something?"

The chunin and Naruto sweatdropped while Kakashi went back to his book. The chunin looked at Naruto saying "Write in neat mission reports and I will tell everyone to let you pick the mission you like in the rank that you can do."

Naruto nodded with stars in his eyes saying "Awesome. Will do chunin-san."

The chunin smirked and went back to his work. Kakashi looked up saying "And that is why you should not underestimate anyone. While the administrative ninja can make it a little difficult for you, you always pick the mission you want anyway. It is very rare that D-rank missions are assigned to teams. So you just gave away a favour for nothing."

Naruto looked at Kakashi and back at the chunin who was smirking and then said "Damnit. I did not think you could be that sneaky chunin-san. You have won this round. I will win the next. Now Kakashi sensei, can we continue?"

Kakashi nodded while the smirk on the chunin's face faded. Naruto was known for his pranking skills. He hoped that he would not be the target for a prank. Kakashi just continued saying "As our very nice chunin-san said, this is where you get your missions. You can ask him for some. Each of the missions have a colour on them which denote what level difficulty they have. The mission control in this room can allot only upto C-ranks. The next room can allot B-ranks and A-ranks. The S-ranks can only be allotted by the hokage or the various commanders of the jonin and ANBU forces or elite jounin level ninja with S-rank clearance. No one else can allot it."

Naruto asked "How do we know whether a jounin ninja has S-Rank clearance?"

Kakashi said "That is an A-Rank secret. Only those who are jounin can know that. Every jounin in the village has A-Rank clearance. Generally chunin and tokubetsu jounin have upto B-Rank clearance and Genin have C-Rank clearance. There are always exceptions of course such as people in various jobs like T&I and ANBU etc but as a rule, this can be followed. You should not worry about it anyway. You will at the most as a genin see upto a B-Rank mission. You should not be able to do anything higher."

Naruto nodded and seeing this Kakashi said "Good. Now you will either take your missions from here or if hokage-sama feels like it then from him. He usually meets a few teams and gives them missions. But as rule of thumb, you can get your missions from here unless asked to do otherwise."

Naruto looked confused and said "But what if someone sets in a fake mission?"

Kakashi said "Good you asked. Any mission issued by the mission office has to have hokage-sama's stamp. It is a special stamp that cannot be replicated. That is why a huge load of paper-work passes his office. There are seals on the side of these scrolls which glow and make a small beep sound which authenticate them as mission scrolls. A mission scroll cannot be taken out of the mission office room without hokage-sama's signature. They are brought here directly. At the door and windows there are seals that check if every scroll that is taken out has those seals and hokage-sama's seal. When you get a scroll you are to run your chakra on the seals on the side and get confirmation that the scroll is genuine. Once this is done, you can leave the mission office. If a mission scroll does not have hokage-sama's seal on it, alarms will flare on the door and cause you to stop and not get out of the corridor. That is also why there are guards outside the mission control office. This way, it is very difficult to leave with a fake mission scroll."

Naruto goes wide-eyed at the safety procedures for a simple chore. Kakashi as if reading his mind says "It is not only about D-Rank missions Naruto. One day you will understand, it is about the forces of the village. Let it go for now. Anyway, the light red bordered ones are D-ranks. The orange ones are C-Ranks, B-ranks are violet, A-ranks are blue and S-ranks are black. Also here is a mission report form. Your can get one from the various counters that have been set up. Once you get a mission from the chunin and finish it, you are to come here and fill up the mission report. In the mission report, you will write what you did, how you did it, what were the key points of the mission, time taken to complete, any exemplary actions by team members, extra comments and possible impact to konoha. Along with this, in the possible impact to konoha section you will also write about any details that you want them to verify and check up on."

"Make it crisp and to the point, no stories. Also neat and bulleted. Makes it easier for the intelligence department to read. Once done, you will return the mission scroll with the signature of the client and the mission report to the completion office in the next room. They will give you your pay-slip which you can encash either downstairs or in your bank. Now take a mission and we can begin if you do not have any questions."

Naruto asked "How many D-Ranks do we have?"

Kakashi said "We generally do not run out of D-Rank missions. There is always a surplus. Why do you ask?"

Naruto said "They are paying, I need the money. I also need them on my file. I was wondering if I can do 2 or 3 D-Ranks a day."

Kakashi hummed and said "That depends. Lets see how it goes today and then when done we will get back to this question ok?"

Naruto nodded and said "Sure sensei.". Turning to the chunin he asked "Chunin-san, can you tell me the list of D-Rank missions you have available?"

The chunin said "They are in the register kid. Pick one and i'll get you its scroll."

Naruto looked through the register and saw that most of the missions were chores. He saw a mission for pulling weeds and since he liked gardening a little himself thought he would take that one. He said "Chunin san. I see a mission for pulling weeds with mission ID D34742. That is the one I would like to take."

The chunin nodded and turned to get the scroll while Kakashi said "You should not announce the mission Naruto. While everyone has access to the register here, that is not the case for the higher level missions. So always state only the mission ID. They will get you the missions."

Naruto said "Sure sensei. Will do from next time."

The chunin had got the scroll and handed it over to Naruto saying "All the details are in the scroll. Have a good missions.". He went back to his work which was filling in the register.

Naruto nodded and after indicating to Kakashi sensei, he and sensei walked out slowly.

Once they reached outside, Kakashi indicated Naruto to a park seat. They went and sat there and then Kakashi asked Naruto to open the scroll. He said "memorising the scroll is a requirement. You have half a minute to read the scroll and then one more minute to think about it. After that I am going to quiz you over the mission. Are you ready?"

Naruto nodded ready and Kakashi said "Go."

Naruto read the scroll. It was a simple pattern as if a template and was as follows:

 _ **OBJECTIVE:**_ _To weed the gardens of the client named Letu Pokinaru._

 _ **LOCATION:**_ _House 34, Lane 2, Sector 3, Konoha_

 _ **TIME FRAME:**_ _No frame given but to be according to the job._

 _ **RANK:**_ _D_

 _ **TO BE COMPLETED BEFORE:**_ _September 5th_

 _ **MISSION SUMMARY:**_ _This is a mission requested by Letu-san. He is a hobby gardener but is also a retired civilian tailor. He has asked for assistance in weeding his garden due to the large amount of land to be weeded. The mission is to be completed by a jounin team in a day or two depending on the amount of land to be weeded._

 _ **CLIENT STATUS and CREDIBILITY:**_ _The client is a frequent customer and try to keep him happy. He is credible, has never given a false mission and is always courteous. Stay the same and all should be fine._

 _ **SCROLL STATUS:**_ _Keep. No need to burn after reading._

Naruto gave the scroll another look before Kakashi said "Time. Now hand over the scroll."

Kakashi took the scroll from Naruto and read it himself. After a minute he asked Naruto "What is the client's name?"

Naruto said "Letu - san."

Kakashi said "I need the full name Naruto. It is important to memorize the information immediately."

Naruto nodded saying "Letu Pokinaru."

Kakashi asked "What is the address?"

Naruto said "House 34, 2nd Lane, 3rd Sector, Konoha."

Kakashi nodded saying "Good. Now tell me what is the difference between time frame and to be completed before?"

Naruto said "I assume time frame is the estimated time it should take to complete this mission and to be completed before is the absolute deadline before which this mission should be completed."

Kakashi said "So when was the last date that you could take this mission?"

Naruto said "Assuming that it takes a day or two I would last take it on 3rd September. That way I can keep a one day window just to be safe."

Kakashi said "Wrong Naruto. You would last take it on the fourth. You do not have the option of always keeping that one day window or a safety window for that matter. There may come a time where things need to be done and they have to. Comfort zones don't matter when desperation sets into the picture.

Naruto nodded saying "Sure sensei. Now can you tell me what scroll status is, and why do we have D-Ranks in the first place? And don't give me that bullshit answer they gave me in the academy."

Kakashi went back to reading his book. When Naruto said bullshit, he bopped Naruto on the head and then when he was sure that Naruto's question was done he replied "Scroll status is whether to keep or burn or hide. Sometimes one cannot take the mission scroll with them but cannot leave it in the mission office as well. Also at other times there are secret missions for the sensei of a team apart from the team itself receiving the mission. For example while the team may be called for a simple escort mission, the sensei may be asked to investigate or spy on something for Konoha intelligence while acting as the team's sensei. These mission codes are written in the scroll status. The code for a secret mission is a B-Rank secret so only when you get to chunin."

Naruto was surprised saying "That also can happen eh?"

Kakashi said "Yeah. Konoha is nicer compared to the other villages but not by much Naruto. The difference is that Konoha treats its ninjas nicer and they are better bonded with each other. Because of this the price for treason is much higher. Mission wise each village has their own specialities. But all this should be academy stuff. Anyway, D-Rank missions." At this Kakashi took a huge sigh. He went back to the book saying "D-Rank missions are honestly just chores. But they perform secondary purposes. They help knit the fact that the team is a team and not a group of individuals, the team gets used to spending all day with each other doing the work and thus used to each other a little."

"This is also given as a time for the academy graduates to mature. The kids graduate the academy thinking they are going to be heros when they are actually going to be soldiers. Soldiers who get the job done, no matter what the job is. If it requires them to be a plumber then they will and so on. Now soldiers can be heros but they are soldiers first and foremost. Being a hero is only a side-effect of being a soldier in this case. So this is to get them used to the fact that they will have to do anything as ordered. Get them used to the fact that they are ninja now, soldiers, who do not question orders."

"Apart from that, it also teaches them civilian skills. Most genin do not have the ability to mask themselves or hide the fact that they are ninja. This way they can develop skills and say they are academy dropouts. Also, these skills can be useful later in life for infiltration purposes. Weeding for instance can to an observant person be helpful in gardening since you can learn a lot about a garden from observation. Painting is just that, being a civilian painter etc etc."

"They can be used to practice various skills as well. For example for those who are good with fire or earth manipulation, weeding can be a form of exercise. Same for painting for water, fire and wind manipulation for drying or spreading the paint. Tora for survival skills. Dog mission to understand animal behaviour and how they track various things while also being able to develop an aura of command and communication. It also teaches how to negotiate with dull people. There are many other missions that can be used for a variety of things. The worst possible thing is that it can be used to increase the diplomacy level of genin since charming the client to give them a good review for a chore is a talent in and of itself."

"Finally, this is used as a mock higher level mission. While weeding, you need to protect the garden. Change the weed to harvesting an important flower and you will understand how they can be further developed into higher rank missions. Shopping can be a delivery mission, Dog walking can be an escort mission, Tora can be a hunting and tracking mission, baby-sitting can be a security detail and so on. Try to imagine them as higher rank missions and you will be able to see where the possible attack patterns are. I believe Iruka already did this with you. Try to evaluate holes in the village security for a prank and analyse it. This can be used for something in the same manner. However most people do not use it for that. They use it to get the teams used to each other, then teach them some skills while letting them out on a real mission after some mock drills while training. I don't know if this answers your question."

Naruto was looking bored and cleaning his ears but he said "Yes it did Kakashi sensei. Now can we do the mission? I am bored and while your lecture was informative, it was very long."

Kakashi had a light sweatdrop on his head, not that people would know. He did not look up from his book and said "Sure, lets go."

Naruto and Kakashi walked to the address. Once they reached the address location, Naruto politely knocked on the door. The person who opened the door looked and said "I do not want you on my property boy. Do not return here." and slammed the door on his face. Naruto and Kakashi did not even get a word in edgewise.

They looked at each other a little surprised with Naruto a little hurt. Then Naruto said "So? That happened. What now sensei?"

Kakashi said "That is on you kid. Customers cannot choose the ninja on the mission. The mission has been assigned to you so you should complete it. How you do it is not of anyone's concern. Also, if this continues, then you will not get good ratings in the missions impacting your overall career. What would you do?"

Naruto said "They don't like it. I don't particularly care about the civilians anyway. They cannot see past the henge. My first instinct is to henge into a team of four and come back saying the mission has been reassigned and finish the mission. Then write in the report that the client does not want me to work on the mission so I henged into a team of four with a simple description of the henge performed. This way I can get the work done and get credit for it in case a report has been filed saying it was a team that performed the task. I can also pass it off as infiltration and henge training if required. It also means that I will not need to physically be here."

Kakashi shrugged and said "I don't particularly have a problem with it. Incidentally why four?"

Naruto said "So you don't have to be here to oversee every single mission I do. It must be boring for you. You can set a meeting time and place for the various lessons. I will be at the mission office at the time we were there today, everyday to get a mission. So if you want to meet me for something or teach me something, you can always catch me there. Seems easier. Although if you want to be here then fine. That is up to you."

Kakashi said "Na, it's good. You are starting to think a little like a diplomat and not a fighter by not confronting the client with the discrimination. Today's lesson is done. The idea seems fine. Also sure, considering how you handled it, I suppose you can do two or three D-Ranks a day. Just make sure they get done ok? I'm off now."

Kakashi vanished in a puff of smoke. Naruto walked around a corner. Made four shadow clones. Henged them into a random faced genin team. The common brown hair, simple body type, brown eyes that is seen in konoha. Then the clones went back to the client to get the mission done while Naruto went training. The orders were passed mentally and the clones knew that they should finish the mission, then submit the mission to the mission office, then get another one and finish that as well. Only then can they dispel for the day. He also told them to look into the various possibilities of the higher missions that Kakashi told him about. There were guidelines available on the various challenges on each kind of mission but he would read that later today while trying to identify them on the field today.

 **Meanwhile with the clones**

The clones were not sure what to do. All of them had shunshinned to the clearing that the original had in mind. But the clearing had no where near the space needed for their training. So each of the main clones went searching for more clearings and training grounds beyond the forest of death while the ones that found clearings started training. They could feel a few tails on them but considering that there were more main clones than the tails, some of the group would definitely be able to train freely. It was those clones that practiced the rasengan's final step.

The first main clone started on chakra control again. The original wanted to be able to have complete control. This is a very important thing because many of the infiltration jutsus had required above decent control and the original wanted to be able to do genjutsu and medical jutsu. So they first clone broke off into 200 different clones and the clones started practicing the sand sticking exercise while the main clone meditated.

The second main clone had was the one that was tasked with completing the academy syllabus. He was done with survival and had learnt the few basic jutsu called the traveller ten. Campfire creation, Earth smoothening, Water drawing, Flash light, Smoke dispersal, Smell cancelling, Earth softening, Tent setup, Tent removal and False surrounding. He could do all of them except for false surrounding which required a lot more control than he had. But he was not afraid. He knew that Senju tsunade and Senju Hashirama both had a lot of chakra and could still become medic nin so he should be able to do the same. He was currently working on reducing all the ones he could do down to sealless execution and was leaving the false surrounding for later. Tomorrow, he would start on the stealth skills and survival knowledge. He made his quota of clones and went about his work.

The third set of clones worked on the shunshin. Naruto on seeing Kakashi's pace with the shunshin did not think he had mastered it to the extent he should have. He also wanted to be able to use it in a fight. This meant that he would have to be able to use it instantaneously without a thought and sight. While being fast. This was the challenge he had set for himself.

The fourth clone was still working on the Kawarimi making it into a long range transportation jutsu while the fifth clone was working on the henge.

The sixth clone went about trying the third step of the rasengan. He had a huge box containing balloons which were replicated when he made clones. All of these clones grabbed a balloon while he meditated trying to regulate the chakra flow in him and regenerate it slightly. He was trying something really chakra intensive and needed to be as efficient as possible. It was just his good luck that despite his training being the most explosive and the most clone dispelling, the dispelled clones would return their chakra to their creator. He also had the most chakra because this would eventually be the strongest jutsu he knew currently and the most chakra consuming. This would be his trump card. He needed to know it in case he ever got into a fight he could not finish. As of now the only attacking potential he had was a kunai. He needed something that could finish people. Even with that advantage, he would still be the first one to pop.

The seventh clone started on fuinjutsu. The original had finally got his writing decent enough for the hokage to deem him ready to learn the theoretical side of fuinjutsu. So a hundred clones were reading the same book simultaneously to try and think at it from possibly different angles. The various seals were still off limits. He had learnt the importance of doing things linearly despite also knowing that he would eventually have to get off the road that had already been walked on. Still, the basics were important and should be flawless. Which was what he was aiming for.

The eighth clone was practicing with the jutsu theory book. Naruto knew that at the end of the day, with his immense chakra reserves and eventual great control, he would become a ninjutsu expert. He would be able to outlast anyone in the field eventually. Thus he should be able to become very good at it. Take simple jutsu, dissect them, understand how they work, master them. Then go on to the next jutsu. Taking this into account, he started with a simple fire style jutsu. He did not know his elemental affinity but that did not matter. The book said that one could learn jutsus of every affinity. It would just be more difficult. But for one to be a ninjutsu master, one should be able to perform jutsu of every affinity and it was highly encouraged that one put in the effort to do so. It would pay off eventually.

The jutsu he picked was the **fire-style controlled fireball**. This was a simple D-Rank jutsu that let out a head sized fireball for a short range. It was not very hot and could be controlled for up to a range of 15 meters. This was the basic introduction fire-type jutsu that got people used to fire type ninjutsu. The thing about fire type ninjutsu is that most fire type ninjutsu could only be used by one's mouth. One had to blow it out. Thus if someone tries with a greater jutsu, there was a high chance that he would burn-out his lungs and throat. This was a simple fire-type jutsu and even if it exploded inside him, the worst that would happen is simple burns that could be healed by any medic nin in Konoha. One could practice with this jutsu and get it working fully. Then heat it up and keep working on it till the heat was strong enough to match a great fireball. This was the approach the book suggested.

He was currently following the book and decided that he would work with this jutsu till he could make it hot enough that he is satisfied. Only then would he go on to the next jutsu. There was a race going on and he wanted to win. This was a race between the other clones and him. Considering that he would eventually be a ninjutsu master, he was in competition with other clones who were assigned beginner jutsu of different elements to master. Whoever mastered it first could get to eat the ramen and had bragging rights. He wanted to master it and get the bragging rights.

Similar thoughts were running through the heads of the other four clones. One of them was working on water ninjutsu or more specifically the drawing water ninjutsu. This was another D-Rank ninjutsu that drew water from the atmosphere in small amounts and sent it in the form of a rock at the enemy. This was not insanely strong. It just helped gain beginner control over external water and helped with some shape manipulation. This would eventually develop into various other jutsu like the water-whip, the suuryudan etc. The basic idea was the same, exert chakra over the water that is external to you, gain control over it, shape it, launch it at the enemy with decent pressure.

The clone learning earth style was learning underground fish projection. This was a jutsu that can soften the earth around the user and use it as a propulsion to help him move through the earth and attack the enemy from underground. In this jutsu, one had to exert control over the earth that is in the immediate surroundings and change it's density while shifting it so that the user can move taught him basic earth level control. This could further be extended with distance and density manipulation which is at the heart of all earth jutsu.

The clone learning lightning techniques is learning the lightning style paralysis. This was another D-Rank jutsu that created sparks of lightning on the palm of the user that were of high enough voltage that they can be used to paralyse the opponent or excessively shock them. This is centered around the palms of the user currently and does not have any other properties except for being a flat surface that can shock users. Playing around with this jutsu is to increase the voltage of the lightning. Play around with shape manipulation and instead of it just being a flat surface on the palms, it can maybe be a rod that can be extended as a wire. The third thing that can be thought of with this jutsu is to be able to do it with any part of the body thus being able to shock anyone even thinking of touching them which can be a huge advantage against a taijutsu user.

The final clone was the wind clone. This clone was learning the gale-palm jutsu which is a D-Rank Wind jutsu that creates a strong gust of air around the user repelling a whole lot of weaponry or adding speed to a thrown weapon. This was a simple enough jutsu. The point was to get used to the pushing effects of wind jutsu. The aim from mastering this particular jutsu was to be able to create a gust of wind in any direction in an instant, isolate the generation of the gust of wind from certain body parts like only from the fore-arms when blocking so that one can throw off the form of a taijutsu user since they would not be ready for the momentum, increasing the power behind the gust and controlling it, from a simple gust to something that can push a full grown human off very easily for a long distance, creating a sort of defense barrier that surrounds the user in the form of regular gusts, using the gusts to gain momentum in a certain direction, can even be used to possibly float or attempt to fly by using with feet.

These were the five jutsu that the original had decided to master. He read that there were classes of what jutsus can do, like wind pushes, cuts, rotates and can be manipulated to create a vaccum. So on for the others as well. Fire is the only thing that is somewhat linear in what it can do, it burns it's way through anything. So he wanted to be able to perform the basics of all these effects and then try to decide which one he wanted to do. So he started with the simplest jutsu that the book recommended for each of the elements.

Things were going to be fun for him now, he had started fuinjutsu and once he could make a sealing scroll, he was proficient enough to be able to make a simple seal that would enable him to make a blood clone thus doubling his training or more. The original had started collecting blood in a sealed container that he stole from the hospital that is used to keep blood. The more blood of his that he had, the more blood clones he could make and the more his training grew.

 **Back with the original**

While his clones were getting competitive and organising themselves for training accordingly, the original was draining his blood while resting after his finished set of exercises. The kyuubi along with lots of food and water will help him regenerate the blood he lost. This was good because he was planning on taking a lot of blood because he wanted blood clones. He was getting tired mentally. He knew that he had to train to get stronger. He wanted it. He willed it but he was getting tired already of training so much all day, day in and day out. He knew he wanted a break but he cannot get one till he gets stronger. The blood clones will help with that. He was lucky that he managed to memorise the jutsus on the sealing scroll. I mean that was the first thing that they taught at the academy. Memorize everything you should be able to reproduce whatever you read for atleast one full day.

Knowing that the forbidden scroll of seals had a lot of strong jutsu, he memorised it and when he went home, had a clone write out all the jutsu he remembered in a huge scroll that he stole. This was sealed into a sealing scroll that he was given by jiji a long time back and hidden under the floorboard in his house.

Now this was going to pay off. The blood clones could concentrate on most of the training and he can only focus on chakra control and physical training which was great as far as he was concerned. Each of them could grow to like their specific art and that would help all of them relax.

Once done with his draining of the blood, he got a report that his clones were done with the three D-Rank missions that he took for the day. They were waiting near the hokage-tower with the reports for all three. Naruto slowly took off to the hokage-tower.

 **At the hokage's-tower**

Naruto arrived at the hokage's tower to find three different teams waiting for him downstairs. Each team had a trio of genin and one jounin with them. As he approached them, the jounin from each team came up. Naruto looked around and signalled them to get inside before talking.

They went into the mission office and in a corner, Naruto sat down. Now on signalling, the jounin of each team stepped up. A few of the chunin in the office were watching what was happening.

The jounin for each team handed Naruto a report and started reporting. The first jounin said "I was assigned the mission to weed the garden boss. The first mission that was assigned to us today. As the report says, the client did not want us as the ninja that were assigned to them. So I henged into a random jounin with my team as random genin and finished the mission. We even managed to get them to leave very good reviews on the work done. Nothing special happened and the report is already done. This was done by afternoon itself. So after we finished the mission, we spent some time on team tactics in the training ground. We took up a basic team tactics book from the library and started working out the simpler tactics for them. We managed to get only two out of the four hundred various tactics and formations down properly and even then are not sure if they will be ingrained in us but we will keep doing this till we get done."

Naruto nodded saying "Well done TL-1. You finished your mission well and managed to do something productive. Keep it up. All of you. Good job." He collected the report. Read through it and then said "Now you may dispel yourselves."

The four clones nodded, released their henge to reveal four Naruto clones and then dispelled themselves. The second jounin stepped up. While this was happening the chunin were staring wide-eyed. One of them whispered to the other "Damn, if he keeps doing this, we can have a huge amount of D-Ranks and C-Ranks in the village done. This will also help him get better faster in terms of leading a team. This is both good and bad. Oh by the way, wanna bet when he will crack?" The other chunin replied "Shut up Genji. You're an ass hole. I bet that he will crack within a week. No wait, lets bet in terms of missions. He will crack by his thirtieth D-Rank."

Genji replied "I'll take you on. I bet he will last 43. The loser treats the winner to sake. Fair?" On receiving a nod, he continues "Now lets see how this goes." He looks up to see that Naruto had finished taking the reports of both the other teams and was waiting in front of them with the completed mission reports and scroll. He said "Chunin-san. I have completed the missions assigned to me and I would like to submit them and collect my pay."

Genji nodded and said "Good job genin san. Also, if you keep this up it will be very helpful. Here's the slip. You know where to collect the pay. Have a nice day." Saying this, he nodded and went to filing the completed missions for him.

Naruto collected his pay and vanished to Ichiraku ramen. At the ramen stand Naruto entered the stand at full force and volume saying "OLD MAN! Get me some miso and keep them coming. Don't make it the ninja ramen. I am celebrating today."

Ayame came out in her apron and asked "What are you celebrating Naruto-kun?"

Naruto said "Oh, hey Ayame-nee-chan. I am celebrating my first completed mission as a ninja. I finished three missions today. Although they were chores, Iruka sensei beat it into my head that I would not be rescuing princesses on my first day as ninja so … I'm doing chores for missions." He made a pout at that. Then he brightened up saying "But this still counts on my mission record so I have just completed my first three ninja missions. And earned money. So today is that celebration. Teuchi Jiji, where is my miso?"

Teuchi came out and handed him the bowl of miso saying "Here it is Naruto-kun. Congrats on finishing your first day as a ninja. Me and ayame-chan will alternate to make you your ramen. It will be a little slow though seeing as you breathe it in." Teuchi chuckled. By the time he was done talking he saw that Naruto was halfway done with his ramen. He instantly ran back to the kitchen to make more for him.

After polishing off twenty bowls of ramen and paying for them, Naruto said "Thank you Teuchi jiji, Ayame-nee-chan. Good night." He was leaving the stand. Both teuchi and ayame said "Good night Naruto-kun. See you at breakfast tomorrow."

Once he left they both breathed a sigh and relaxed a little. Whenever Naruto entered his ramen eating streak, they were rushing and exercising for the whole duration. He ate so fast and they did not want to keep him waiting, so they worked and multitasked to the best of their abilities to keep him satisfied. He was after all their best and favourite customer. Teuchi said "So, he is done with his first mission. I hope he doesn't eat like that every night. Although it gives us a lot of money, I don't think I can keep up this pace."

Ayame sighed and said "I don't mind. He is nice to us and loves our ramen. Plus it's him. Can you honestly deny him anything?"

Teuchi was chuckling while he was walking out to take another customer's order and said "You are right Ayame-chan. I don't think I can deny Naruto anything when he makes that cute face of his. Anyway, break time is over Ayame-chan. Let's get back to work."

Naruto meanwhile went back home and meditated while slowly dispelling his team clones one by one. They were waiting for him in his room when they were done, or already dispelled.

Once done, he made the same set of clones and went to sleep while they went back to training. This seemed to be his routine for the time being. It annoyed him to no end but since he had to get stronger as fast as possible, he had to suffer through this till he got into the blood-clone creating space and found a place where his blood clones could train without being spied upon.

The last thoughts in his head before sleep claimed him what the determination to get strong enough to get Jiji to tell him about his family ASAP. That will burned a lot more than anything else in him right now.


	9. Chapter 9: The rest of the team

**Forge your path – Naruto fanfiction**

 **A.N: I do not own Naruto**

 **Chapter 9: The rest of the team**

Sasuke did not know what to. He had just been failed. He had been asked to return to the academy. He could not envision it yet it happened. He was always praised as a genius, as someone who was always ahead. He was also decently strong for a genin. He knew that for sure. But he was still failed and asked to go back to the academy.

His mind had just restarted when he heard Sakura screeching "I do not believe this Sasuke-kun! He failed us. The rookie of the year and the kunoichi of the year. I will complain to my mother. She is a member of the council. She can get us another teacher who is better. I am sure considering that you are an Uchiha, she can further the case if you also come talk to her. Come home with me Sasuke-kun. Maybe after that we can train and have dinner together."

Sasuke lost his head. He was just rejected by someone he identified as a very strong ninja because of the times that even Itachi deferred to him. He was just rejected and tossed to the side as trash. And on top of that he had to hear Sakura screeching. He went completely nuts. He shouted "SHUT UP SAKURA! I don't know if you realise this but that was the best ninja in town who was willing to teach. I am the rookie of the year and you are the kunoichi of the year. They will not allow anyone but the best of the year this particular team. On top of that I recognise him. He is Hatake Kakashi. A prodigy who is feared. He would have been the perfect teacher and he is not going to be tossed around by some stupid council. We just lost a chance to learn under him because of my stupidity. But atleast I tried. What did you do? Just hung around being useless. Do not pester me for dates again. If you ask me for a date again, I will break your bones. Is that clear?"

His face was dark and there was a slight hint of madness in his eyes. He was looking to let out his rage. Looking to let out all his frustration that his brother had graduated at the age of six and he could not even graduate at the age of 12. At how far away his brother still was from him. It was eating his head away and he just had a victim in front of him who had annoyed him over and over.

Sakura was scared. She had never heard Sasuke lose his cool. She had heard him smirk or glower but never lose his cool and shout. His eyes were wide and glaring. There was something in them that she could not identify. It was scary. She honestly believed that if she did anything to him now, he would break her bones. Maybe even kill her. This was not a cute angsting guy. This was a raging fighter. She did not know what to do and she was very close to pissing herself.

Sasuke in the meantime took one look at Sakura's face. It was completely terrified. He huffed at her and said "Do not follow me around Sakura. I need space right now. I warn you one last time. If you do, I will break your bones and leave you there. I will see you tomorrow morning in the academy where I hope somehow I can convince that man to teach us."

Sasuke walked away from Sakura and left the training ground. He was still seething a little at the fact that Naruto had gotten stronger than him. It was frustrating. He was working so hard and still Naruto overtook him. Naruto was working smarter due to help. He would have to get similar help and the best chance he had at getting extremely good help was tomorrow. He was willing to beg for that help as much as an Uchiha could beg. He went back to look into the library to see if there were better training exercises given to improve one's speed and strength. There should be something that should be available to those who still have not accessed their sharingan. Worst case, he would head to the house of his cousins whom he knew for sure were jounin level shinobi and did not have the sharingan. Maybe he would find help there.

Meanwhile with Sakura *

Sakura walked home in a dejected fashion. She could not believe that she had failed. She had no idea how to work with this in her mind. She did not know if the others would pass. Sure maybe this jounin intentionally set a particularly difficult test but what if the others also failed. I mean, if Sasuke the rookie and her the kunoichi of the year had problems the others would also have problems right?

Then she realised that his was not necessarily true. Naruto did not have problems. Kiba and Shino followed Pack and Hive mentality, and Shikamaru was smart when he actually worked. So the others might be able to pass. Naruto had actually done everything for a pass but had failed because of her and Sasuke. How bad was it when the dead last of the class was held back because the rookie of the year and the kunoichi of the year were not good enough?

She entered her house and closed the door. She was stepping out of her shoes when her mother asked "Sakura is that you? I heard the door shut."

Sakura replied "Yes mom" in a very dead manner.

Hearing her speak like that, Sakura's mother came into the living room where she just saw Sakura enter. She looked downcast and her mother asked "What happened Sakura? Did you fail your test? Why so downcast? Did something else also happen? Tell me something Sakura."

Looking at her mother sounding so worried Sakura said "Yes mom. I failed my test. The problem was the way we failed the test. Both me and Sasuke failed the test while Naruto passed. But because the team as a whole failed the test, our team failed. We have to report to the academy tomorrow."

Sakura's mother Hisano looked at her daughter who had her hair and eyes. She looked downcast. Hisano sat next to Sakura and ruffled her hair saying "That is ok Sakura, you know what the test is about now. Work hard next time and you will get through. Isn't that what you always do? Why so downcast? You still have a year of training that you can do and become even better."

At this time, Sakura's father entered the house. He was a chunin and after taking one look at Sakura said "You failed your test didn't you?"

Seeing Sakura look as if she was going to start crying and Hisano send him an angry glare he immediately backtracked a little saying "So who was your supposed jounin sensei princess?"

Sakura sniffled a little while looking down and said "A jounin named Hatake Kakashi dad. Do you know him?"

Sakura's father Ikuku said "I know of him. He is one of the strongest ninja in the village. Also he has never passed a team despite being assigned teams for 4 years now. His test is extremely hard Sakura. It is ok if you did not pass. I will help you train and you can surely pass the next one."

Sakura said "Thank you, dad. But it feels bad that both me and Sasuke could not figure it out while Naruto passed the test and only failed because of me and Sasuke."

Ikuku said "Naruto passed? Uzumaki Naruto? I thought he had failed the Academy."

Sakura said "He actually did not pass the initial exam but yesterday when we waiting for the team announcement, he was there and Iruka sensei had confirmed that Naruto passed. He was also assigned on a team with us. So I am sure he passed because the teams are assigned sometime back if what I read is correct. I am not sure how though. And he did pass our test. He actually managed to take the bells from Kakashi-sensei and even asked for teamwork. He only failed because Kakashi sensei said he would only pass a team and Naruto said he would not work with us anymore because we were not professional enough … Sniffle … can you believe it. Naruto, the deadlast said he refused to work with us because we were not professional enough. He said that he would rather fail than work in a team like ours. What did I do wrong dad?" Saying this, she ran into Ikuku's arms who kept patting her back while giving a confused look to Hisano who just shrugged.

Ikuku could think of a lot of things he could help her to become better in but he decided to just stay patting her till she calmed down. He slowly asked "What were Kakashi-san's instructions princess?"

Sakura kept crying but said "He …sniff sniff … He asked us to come to the academy tomorrow morning at 8. I don't know why. Can you tell me what happens dad?"

Ikuku said "Nothing happens Sakura. Usually people who fail are sent back to the academy but that is when the academy starts. Not immediately the next day after the test. You have one more week before the academy starts thus one more week before you have to go. Did he call you alone or did he ask Sasuke also to come?"

Sakura said "He called me and Sasuke. He told Naruto that he would speak to him at the Hokage's office at 8 tonight."

Ikuku said "Well, that is not the procedure generally. Maybe he has something for you. Wait for it tomorrow.

Sakura just sniffed. Hisano said "It's ok Sakura, eat and rest. Let's see what happens tomorrow before we decide what to do. If you still want to be a shinobi, then we can continue with one more year in the academy where you can pass next year and continue working."

Sakura nodded, hugged her mom, took her fruit bowl upstairs and ate it. Then she slept. She was tired. She did not wake up for dinner and her parents did not wake her up. They also decided to see what will happen the next day before deciding what to do.

 **The next day**

At eight in the morning, Kakashi walked up to the academy to find out that Sasuke and Sakura were waiting for him. He did not like it but he had to pass them. He was just glad that he had sent his clone along with Naruto. He saw the two of them and slowly walked to them while clearing his thoughts and deciding how he would say what he wanted to say.

He said "Morning Sakura and Sasuke."

Sasuke said "Morning Kakashi-san." while Sakura said "Morning Kakashi sensei."

Kakashi smiled at them and said "While I do not like it, I am being asked to pass the two of you because Naruto rightfully passed and you are supposed to be on his team. I accepted on certain conditions. I will pass you and teach you if you fulfil those conditions. Is that clear?"

Sakura looked up in hope while Sasuke looked up in surprise saying "Really sensei? What are those conditions?" In his mind, Sasuke thought ' _I need him to train me. I will accept all of those conditions so long as he can train me.'_ .

Kakashi looked at them and said "We might as well separate for this since both of you have different problems. So … " and in a puff of smoke another kakashi appeared. That kakashi went gestured to Sasuke while the original stayed with Sakura. Sasuke looked at the original who said "Don't worry. The clone will help and I know everything that the clone does and your interactions. So it will be as though you are interacting with me. Sasuke go ahead with the clone. Sakura, follow me to training ground 7."

Sakura and Sasuke separated. Kakashi walked with Sakura and said "You have a lot of problems Sakura. You are good with theory but you are very narrow minded. Let me make the first thing clear to you. Your bearing as kunoichi of the year does not in anyway reflect on your skill. Is that clear? Right now, I see a useless waste of time kunoichi standing in front of me albeit one with some potential." Sakura's heart broke with that statement. She took a lot of pride in being kunoichi of the year and Kakashi had just called her useless and waste of time, further saying that the title was worthless.

Before she could say anything Kakashi said "I will admit though. You have some potential to be a good medic as well as decent at taijutsu due to your chakra control. Maybe even genjutsu but I am not sure about that. So that is the path we will take in terms of your fighting ability. In terms of your attitude and personality on the other hand we will have a lot of issues."

"Very frankly, while I would like to help you, as of now I don't care how you behave outside of missions so long as during training and missions you behave like a shinobi. No dress, no red, no fantasizing about Sasuke or any other guy for that matter, you will be a shinobi in all that it entails including getting down and dirty. If I hear a word of complaint I will punish you. You can always ask me respectfully about the motives behind something but never forget that I am your commander and while you are my student, you are also a soldier under my command. Is that clear?" Kakashi asked with a stony face.

Sakura looked scared nodded. Kakashi said "Good, so to make things clear. I am a dictator here. You can ask me the intentions behind something, even disagree respectfully, but you will obey. If there is disobedience you will be punished. But on the other hand, if you go above and beyond the line of work, you will be rewarded. That should cover everything I temporarily wanted to make clear regarding your behaviour and status. Now let's get to training."

Sakura didn't say anything so Kakashi continued saying "You will first dress appropriately. So a standard konoha shinobi uniform and hair plaited into a bun. You will dress and move like a shinobi, not like someone trying to model." At this seeing Sakura raise her hand he asked "What is it?"

Sakura asked "Sensei, how does it matter what I wear? I have seen people wearing even more atrocious costumes and no one has said anything to them."

Kakashi said "Two simple reasons. The first and the most important is because I said so. The second is that they are not on my team and have usually earned the strength to get away with wearing what they want. You on the other hand as long as you are in my team will wear what I say while on a mission."

Sakura nodded cowed. Kakashi continued saying "You will train for the appropriate amount of time, which means that training for around 3 to 4 hours after team training is done and training while waiting for me. Third, you will not cause unnecessary tension with your teammates. This means no mooning over Sasuke and no hitting Naruto on the head."

Seeing Sakura raise her hand he nodded at her to continue and she said "But Naruto annoys me. He always says nonsense and asks me out for a date."

Kakashi said "This is exactly what I am preventing. Naruto does not always speak nonsense. I have found him to be very smart. If you do not like what he is saying agree to disagree respectfully and drop or change the topic. I will speak to him about the same thing. He will not ask you out and will behave like a proper shinobi while training and missions. Does that satisfy you?"

Seeing her nod he said "Good, that for now covers everything we have to talk about. You will train hard and eat properly. Even if it gets you dirty and sweaty. If I find you slacking I will take you through boot camp from hell. I know you do not know what it is right now but you will soon. Let us get back to training. You will be the team medic tentatively. But before that, we need to get you to genin level in everything else. Your physical skills are not even close to a final year academy student. I have been given three months to make you genin level and I will even if it kills you. Is that clear?"

Sakura was scared now but she nodded saying "Yes sensei."

Kakashi said "Good, now perform the academy warm up. You have five minutes."

After the warmup, he got her to stick a leaf to her forehead and made her run around the training ground for one hour at top speed, then push-ups, crunches, sit-ups, pull-ups and all manner of exercises to work her body. All of this was without any chakra used to strengthen it up.

Once done, he gave her a fifteen minute break and asked her to repeat the whole thing again. Everytime her leaf fell off she would have to drop and give 15 push ups. She had to keep doing this till lunch.

After lunch, he taught her the tree climbing exercize and told her to keep running up and down the tree till she was tired. Once tired, she would have to read and memorize a scroll containing the KSL basics. Everytime in between the breaks in tree climbing she would have to do this. This continued till four in the evening.

By this time, her chakra was dead and she was extremely tired. Kakashi then made her go through all of the taijutsu katas in the academy a hundred times before he broke for the day.

He told her "This is going to be your schedule from tomorrow. You will get out for training at 6 in the morning and meet me here for training. We will work on your physical endurance with the exercises we did in the morning. Then after breakfast, we will do the tree climbing exercise with the variations I showed you. Then after lunch we will be doing Taijutsu katas till four. Once a week we will take a D-Rank to earn some money for ourselves. After four, you will be given the evening off to read up on any assigned homework as well as practice other things that you want to. Apart from that, you will also have to purchase a few things and this is when you will do it. This will be our schedule till I see a change. See you tomorrow morning at six if there are no questions."

Kakashi was about to vanish but seeing that Sakura had questions he indicated for her to ask them. She said "Are Sasuke-kun and Naruto going to be training with us?"

Kakashi said "Sasuke will be training with us. Naruto is already beyond this training. He needs a different type of training. He has good fighting skills but lacks in the more diplomatic areas while you and Sasuke have those but lack in the fighting skills. Naruto will join us once I feel that this team can work professionally. Till then I will be training you and Sasuke together to better your skills and attitude while I teach Naruto diplomacy."

Sakura nodded and made to move. Kakashi just waved at her and vanished in a puff of smoke. Sakura started for home since she would need to buy the standard Konoha uniform for genin and sleep and eat because she would have to be early tomorrow.

 **Meanwhile with Sasuke**

Sasuke and the Kakashi clone moved to the ANBU base. Sasuke did not know it was the ANBU base. All he knew was that they were going to the building that had a lot of security. While going there, Kakashi said "Sasuke, I will be frank with you. You right now are poster boy for a genin. You have a lot of good genin level skills. And you may even improve your skills to chunin or maybe even jounin but you will never get that promotion the way you are."

Sasuke bristled and said "Why is that?"

Kakashi said "Because you are mentally weak Sasuke. You do not have mental strength currently. Nor do you have any of the abilities to lead a team. You also have a lot of issues that will make it extremely difficult for you to become stronger. Before we get into how I am going to help you, we need to make our equation clear. I am your sensei but I am also your commander. You will never lie to me or conceal anything from me that I enquire of directly. If you want to question something or disagree with something I say, do so respectfully and humbly and I will not mind. But never forget that I am the commander and you are my soldier. If I tell you to run or move away, you will do so no matter who is in front of you, even if Itachi. Is that clear? Under that condition and only that condition will I teach you."

Kakashi could see the defiance in Sasuke. Sasuke still could not hide his emotions well and Kakashi would not be teaching him that unless he was sure of Sasuke's emotions. He looked at the struggle it took for Sasuke to nod. He knew that Sasuke did not mean it. But then again, do it long enough and Sasuke will start changing even without knowing it. He continued saying "We are first going to check for any mental issues. Your psych profile raised flags I did not like since they hindered you. I will be taking you to one of the psychologists I know. He will give me a complete and fair report of how I can make you mentally strong. This is important for you to be able to counter genjutsu and work with the sharingan."

Sasuke just nodded while thinking that this would make him mentally strong. He also understood the unspoken warning that the person incharge was good and lying to him would just worsen his case and Kakashi would not teach him.

Kakashi said "We will be making you an all rounder depending on what your psych profile says. It will be more difficult and take some more time to get stronger but it will be good because once you are stronger, you will have fewer weaknesses. Oh, I almost forgot. The final condition is that you will be civil with your team and work with them. You are currently not the team leader and the title of the rookie of the year means shit to me. You will be civil. Depending on which of the three of you develops to be mentally better, they will be the team leader. So you will shift that stupid arrogance of being rookie of the year and Uchiha out. They will get you killed. It will not show during missions or training. Am I clear?"

Sasuke was gritting his teeth. He would have to let go of his uchiha pride, take shit from two nobodies for training. He would swallow it because on reading up on Kakashi further, he found out that Kakashi had a sharingan and could train him for it. Kakashi could literally see the thought process Sasuke had on his face. He could hear him gritting his teeth and accepting things temporarily so that he could grow strong. Kakashi said "Good. That is all. Now let us be off."

Saying this, he just caught hold of Sasuke's shoulder and vanished along with Sasuke in a cloud of smoke. When Sasuke could see next without the world spinning, he could see the inside of a psychologist's counselling room with a blond hair psychologist sitting there. He did not see Kakashi anywhere and assumed that the psychologist is whom he was supposed to speak to. He mentally prepared himself for a counselling session.

 **After the counselling session**

Inoichi, the head of the Yamanaka clan was troubled. He was the head of T&I. He was going to retire soon to train his daughter in the ways of his clan and help in the flower shop his wife had set up. But this last request from Kakashi had him stumped. The blonde haired man combed his hair mentally while deciding how to break the news to Kakashi. He saw Kakashi waiting outside the room and knew that Kakashi had seen and heard everything said inside the room. He walked towards him to hear the silver haired jounin say "Your verdict Inoichi-san."

Inoichi sighed and said "Things are bad Kakashi san. He was left unsupervised for far too long. Also, Itachi had cast a genjutsu on him that forced him to relive the killing of his clan. Without giving him counselling, the civilians idolised him. The end result is someone who does not have any ties to konoha, thinks most of konoha is worthless, is extremely proud of the uchiha clan thinking they are entitled and the better warriors due to sharingan. All he wants is power to kill Itachi and will do anything to get it. I do not know how to help him now since it is very late but I would suggest the ANBU infiltration mechanism. Get him to act humble and interact civilly with his teammates as part of infiltration and he will eventually do that. He needs bonds here if he is not to betray Konoha. He also needs to understand that this is his home. And finally he needs to understand that the Uchiha are just a clan and that they are not stronger or weaker than anyone else. They are just unique."

Kakashi asked "What about that complex where he has to get everything first and as fast as possible? His reaction to seeing people stronger than him is troubling."

Inoichi said "That is a result of the existing conditions. He feels that everytime he fails he is not worthy of the uchiha name and how can someone who is not an Uchiha master something before him. He also feels that as an Uchiha, he should be the strongest thus having a compounded issue where he does not learn and when he does he struggles everytime someone does it before him. I would suggest to get him working in a time for a long duration so that he builds up some bonds with his teammates. Then work on explaining that each of them have their respective strengths in battle and how that is ok. Finally work on his attitude. The civilians have made him the way he his. Beat it into him that it is bad and use the ANBU infiltration mechanism to ensure that his behaviour change occurs. It is a good thing in this case so should not hurt him."

Kakashi said "I was planning on teaching him speed, strength, genjutsu breaking, genjutsu casting, genjutsu detection and chakra control. This is still good right?"

Inoichi said "It is not about what you teach him Kakashi. It is about how you teach him."

Kakashi said "Oh, I am planning on teaching all three of them the way I teach ANBU."

Inoichi shuddered and said "Yea, that should work. Just don't overdo it. They are kids and Sakura is my kid's friends. I do not want to see her hurt."

Kakashi nodded and took Sasuke away. Sasuke awoke in his house to see the Kakashi clone still with him drinking tea and reading his book. Before Sasuke could move or say anything Kakashi said "I have your psych profile and it is not good. As of right now, you are definitely not the team leader of this team. The current person who is most suited to be team leader is Naruto. You have some diplomatic skills though and that will be used. I will be preparing you for Itachi. You will learn genjutsu detection, dispelling, casting and chakra control. Apart from that, you will increase your physical capability. You will be faster and stronger. But there are conditions."

Sasuke nodded to show he was listening. Kakashi said "You will wear the Konoha standard uniform while training and missions. While I agree to you wearing the Uchiha crest since it is a clan symbol, it will be hidden during missions and training. Secondly, you will behave in a humble and civil manner with your teammates. Your biggest problem in gaining strength right now is pride Sasuke. It is the one thing that will kill you and is currently keeping you weak. I will beat that out of you if I have to. I will train you tomorrow. Meet me and Sakura in training ground 7 at 5:30 in the morning. Any questions?"

Sasuke said "What about Naruto? Does he get special training?"

Kakashi said "He gets different training yes. He is currently being taught how to be diplomatic, how to be polite, how to gather information since he is already adequate in his fighting skills. He will also be taught how to dispel and detect genjutsu though since he does not know that. Your speed and strength is currently good but can be better. Sakura's is horrible but can be better. You will help her as well. Think of it as practice for being a team leader. Naruto will join us once I deem this team ready to work professionally."

Sasuke gritted his teeth but nodded. Kakashi said "Bye Sasuke. You know when and where to meet." He waved his hand without looking up from his book and vanished in a puff of smoke. Sasuke went about trying to get ready for the next day. He had to get a konoha standard uniform after all.


End file.
